#this isn’t Twitter or Instagram where tags = more likes or whatever | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ctxinari · 27 days ago

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✦ WELCOME • TO • MY • BLOG! ✦

[re-joined 03-12-2024]

ミ Important Note: I'm a very busy school student, so I usually update or post whenever I can or when I'm on a month/week break, on holidays, or in my free time. (If there are any errors please notify me in the comments because British/American English isn’t my first vocabulary. Trini Patois English/Spanish is my language vocabulary)

A/N: I have Twitter (X) but I’m not looking for problems because of nsfw and twitter being a dumpster fire it is, and the fact that I'm a minor. I just use it to upload heads-ups, rough animation/sketches, and works, or just write my opinions. I'm also on YouTube, Instagram and Tumblr. Please DO NOT REUPLOAD my art nor use my characters for any sexual fanfiction, NSFW purposes, or x readers. It's not appropriate. I'm just here to have fun. (-_- ) All spamming hate comments will be reported and blocked!!

-Please also note that my uploading schedule is currently inactive at the moment.-

Keep in mind 13+ // 16+ // 18+ DOES NOT mean the content I make is sexual (minus slight PG-13 suggestive)! Some [18+] posts like tattoo places [eg: lower V-line and lower spine] and describing certain parts of the body are not sexual! I DO NOT WRITE SMUT, DRAW OR ANIMATE IT!

✦✦✦ WELCOME • TO • THE • FINAL • WAR ✦✦✦

✦ CHARACTER • INFORMATION • FILES ✦

✦ CHARACTER • MASTERLIST ✦

✦ CHARACTER • PLAYLIST ✦

✦ IMPORTANT • INFORMATION ✦

✦ BOOK • OF • A • BROKEN • MAN ✦

✦ XIMENA’S • JOURNAL ✦

Main Info ► FAQ (Comming Soon) ✦

✦ (Opt In/Out Coming Soon) : If you’d like to be tagged in the stories and art that I'm creating—like Canon x Reader, OC x Canon, or updates on my OCs and other story-related posts—you can click up there to join in! If you’d prefer not to, no worries at all! Thank you so much for your interest! ✦

@/ctxinari -> Media Info ► TWITTER ✦ INSTAGRAM ✦ YOUTUBE ✦ KO-FI ✦ PAYPAL ✦ PRINT ✦ MERCH (COMMING SOON..)

@/official.frana -> Personal Media Info ► INSTAGRAM ✦ VLOG ACCOUNT ✦

Phone Box (Ask Box) ► ringing “hello?/¿hola?” : open! — ask/say whatever you like! I don’t mind (unless if it’s rude 👀)

✦ ORIGINAL WRITING AND ART ONESHOTS THAT I AM WORKING ON! 📝 : ▼

(-FINAL WAR-)

❛ Always sleep with one eye open. Never take anything for granted. Your best friend might just be your enemy. ❜

(STRANGER) Black Metal And Gunpowder. || 16+ One-shot || Not Started < Stories/Art on this page are for mature audiences, ages 16 and over. Contains graphic behavior that may be disturbing for some readers. Please understand that if this is too much click off, your mental health matters and I’ll see you in the next post. >

(JADEN) To Be Alive. || One-shot || 13+ Not Started < inactive >

(JADEN & STRANGER) Bury Your Secrets. || One-shot || Not Started < inactive >

< Bonus > (JADEN & STRANGER) Jealous Jealous Jealous Boy. || One-shot || Not Started < inactive >

(-FILLER-)

❛ He will learn more about life than any being in history, but death will forever be a stranger to him… ❜

(HUNTER) Naïve. || 16+ One-shot || Not Started < Stories/Art on this page are for mature audiences and over. Contains graphic behavior that may be too much for some readers. Please understand that if this is too much click off, your mental health matters and I’ll see you in the next post. >

(HUNTER & STRANGER) What a funny Scotsman. || 13+ One-shot || Not Started < inactive >

(-FILLER-)

❛ She is my heart's quiet prayer, a sunrise I wake to every day. But his shadow stands where I long to be, and her smile does not belong to me alone. ❜

(AMIR & STRANGER) Habibti. || 13+ One-shot || Not Started < Stories/Art on this page are for mature audiences and over. Contains graphic behavior that may be too much for some readers. Please understand that if this is too much click off, your mental health matters and I’ll see you in the next post. >

(-FILLER-)

❛ For the first time in years, fear loosened its grip, replaced by a warmth she hadn't felt in decades—maybe, just maybe, the world isn't as cruel as she thought.❜

(EVELYN & STRANGER) A Quiet Shield. || 13+ One-shot || Not Started < Stories/Art on this page are for mature audiences and over. Contains graphic behavior that may be too much for some readers. Please understand that if this is too much click off, your mental health matters and I’ll see you in the next post. >

(-MODERN WARFARE-)

❛ You think attention is love, and that’s why you suffer so deeply. ❜

(KINGER x CUPID) Where Loyalty Collide. || 16+ One-shot || Not Started < Stories/Art on this page are for mature audiences and over. Contains graphic behavior that may be disturbing for some readers. Please understand that if this is too much click off, your mental health matters and I’ll see you in the next post. >

(-BLACK OPS 6-)

❛ You’ve shown me the true meaning of disappointment. ❜

(FLINT x MELLOW) The Soldier's Solace || 17+ One-shot || Not Started < Stories/Art on this page are for mature audiences and over. Contains graphic behavior that may be disturbing for some readers. Please understand that if this is too much click off, your mental health matters and I’ll see you in the next post. >

VISUALS + RANDOMS 📝 : ▼

Random things in pockets and bags 🎒 || Mini Series || -> What does the Commander Team carry on them when they’re on leave? (featuring. Herefordshire Blue Temple!)

Fish Outta Water 🏴‍☠️ || Mini Series || -> How would Commander Task Force, Blue Temple, and Task Force 1-4-1 look as mermaids/mermen (sirens) and pirates?

Twisted Intentions 🔗 [Villain AU] (featuring. Herefordshire Blue Temple!) || Mini Series || -> What if the “heroes” of this story went bad for their own selfish reasons?

Deadman's Cry 🎭 [Purge AU] (featuring. Commander Task Force, Task Force 1-4-1 and Herefordshire Blue Temple!) || Mini Series || -> For one night, the masks come off, and the monsters show their faces. < Original credits idea inspired by © ISLANDTEROCHIPS // @islandtarochips au post that can be found right here. >

✦ ORIGINAL WRITING, ART, ANIMATION AND NOVELLA WORKS THAT I AM WORKING ON! 📝 : ▼

Written In The Pages Of My Life (an original book/art/animation that tells the story of my testimony when I was 13-14 years old) < Art/Animation on this series are for mature audiences and over. Contains graphic behavior that may be disturbing for some viewers. Please understand that if this is too much click off, your mental health matters and I’ll see you in the next post. >

Sin Parar (an original analog animation series) < Art/Animation on this series are for mature audiences and over. Contains graphic behavior that may be disturbing for some viewers. Please understand that if this is too much click off, your mental health matters and I’ll see you in the next post. >

< Biblical Novella > The Heaven Series (an original religious book/visual novella which includes comedy, backstory, and angst yet wholesome) < But one of the men with Jesus pulled out his sword and struck the high priest's slave, slashing off his ear. “Put away your sword,” Jesus told him. “Those who use the sword will die by the sword. Don't you realize that I could ask my Father for thousands of angels to protect us, and he would send them instantly?” - Matthew 26:51-53 >

✦ MY DIARY : 000 - 001 - 002 - 003 - 004 - 005

✦ MY STUFF : #— inari updates #— inari rambles #— inari answers #— inari thoughts #— inari arts #— inari writes #— inari animations #— inari wips #— inari spilled ink #— inari talks #— inari church yap-yaps

✦ EQUIPMENTS I USE :

Apps - Procreate | VLLO | After Effects

Tablet - Ipad 6th Generation

Laptop: Samsung Google ChromeOS

Art Supplies - A Plane Sketchpad and Click Pencil (0.5)

You might come here or follow me after seeing one of my arts, posts, or memes. My blog mostly posts about my arts, thoughts, memes, or comics related to CoD, my life, or the bible. Let me introduce myself (´ᴗ ` )

This post isn't that long, but please read until the disclaimer.

✦ GENERAL :

I am a 16-year-old Form 3 secondary school student! (Grade 8) I am also studying P.O.B. (Principles of Business), and medicine, along with writing, animation, and art!

Creating OCs in writing is what I like to do (I can't draw well but I'm learning to)

I like writing and drawing stories and art about my characters or any other people's OCs (We all wanted to have comfort characters in our lives or we tried to comfort them and make them have a happy ending)

I’m a bit tied up right now, so I might not be available all the time. Thank you for understanding!

I'm also the main art and illustrator designer for @/Jason's Exotic Seafood Trading on Instagram!

My big dream is to one day be commissioned by Certified Sampson [Instagram], Kalonji [YouTube], Highman Flicks [TikTok], and Jordxn.xi [Instagram]. (Viewer Discretion IS Advise For Kalonji and Highman Flicks)

Proud Trinidadian based in the Caribbean. (Big up tuh allyuh! 🇹🇹 👉😎👉)

I really love making OCs on any fandoms that are based with the Indigenous sides (Mostly the Trini/Vene ones) and would love to share my culture with you guys here.

I love making comics, usually; angst (I'm allergic to angst but at the same time I'm never against it, I just love to make myself suffer lmao) or comedy-themed. I'm a fluff and hurt/comfort advocate (^.^)

I'm an INTJ who's OBSESSED with dark and green aesthetics.

I technically can't see so well with my eyes (very VERY blurry) so I wear strong glasses lenses.

I usually listen to music when I draw or write when I'm off of school. If you're like me who's bored and staring at a screen all the time or stressed out due to school work, feel free to follow my Esounds playlist (Since I'm too frickin broke to afford Spotify) and my playlists are yours to hear! (my playlists are my stuff) (￣\/￣.) They are my main inspiration for writing and art.

✦ FANDOM/INTERESTS :

ANIME : Naruto, One Piece, Boruto (the manga), Demon Slayer, SpyxFamily. (Multifandom1)

GAMES : Free Fire (since 2017 with my big bro), Call Of Duty (og lover since 2017!, Thanks J <3), GTA, The Last of Us, Resident Evil (Multifandom2)

FAV YOUTUBERS : CoryxKenshin (my fav fr!), Mikeeey, Markiplier, ManlyBadassHero, EmortalMarcus, Rotten Mango, Jschlatt.

LIKES: Analog Horror, True Crime Storytelling, Church, Studying, Reading, Art, and Music. Food...

✦ NOT INTERESTED IN :

Politics/social issues

NSFW (Please keep in mind that slight Nude Art isn't sexual or p0rn0graphic, it shows the beauty of others and makes them come out as confident in their own body WITHOUT being provocative or perverted. > Matthew 18:9 says, "And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away." which means any choice has consequences. Putting away lust means loss of a temporal pleasure. Not everything must be perverted.)

Any form of rape/sexual assault, incest/pedophilia, pro-shippers.

General negativity (If any of you wanna start shit insulting anyone, my mutuals or supporters with different opinions, beliefs, sexuality, ect all for shits and giggles or hate in general, respectfully get out before I block you. Because I do not promote that kind of behaviour!! I don’t care if you are a self-proclaimed ‘Christian’, pick up your Bible and learn with your heart and not with your pride or ego my brother/sister in Christ. Mark 12:31, 1 John 4:19, 1 John 4:11, Matthew 7:1, Luke 6:37.)

✦ DISCLAIMER :

I welcome all interactions as long as it is done in a kind and respectful manner. I want to clarify that I am a Christian, but I do not intend to impose my religion on anyone. My purpose here is to express my enthusiasm for the things that I love and am passionate about. I am happy to interact with anyone, regardless of their identity or who they love. However I do have some limitations on what I can or cannot draw, and I hope you understand this. (Anyone can interact with my bible-yap yapping posts and give their opinions however you want, again, just be respectful.)

If you want to send me DM's or ask to belittle me or say something mean then please don't bother. I'm broke, I sleep short hours a day, my eyes hurt, my back hurts, my butt hurts cuz I'm sitting in a class, my feet hurt because I have to walk very far to school and very far to home, I got loads of school work/assignments and I don't need more problems. Please don't waste your time being rude. If you hate my work then don't interact with it because Tumblr will suggest more of it to you.

Please don't demand(in an aggressive way) or rush any stories/art from me! I appreciate people being excited but there are ways to ask if I am going to write/draw something other than commanding me to do it!

DO NOT repost OR translate my works on other sites. I reserve all rights to my works. If you do this I will block and report your accounts on the respective platform you’re using. (exp: Wattpad, ao3, Pinterest, A.I, or any other platform)

Thank you for reaching out to me. I read every single ask and DM's you send me. If I don't answer or reply, that means I don't know how to answer because I'm awkward, I'm busy with schoolwork, and I have a lot on my plate. I live in D/P, Trinidad (UTC−04:00), so if I haven’t replied to your message, that means It’s night and I’m asleep. I will reply as soon as I can! (´－ω－)人

I am happy for you to use my artwork as your profile picture or header or anything else publicly, but please remember to give me © credit or put my name @ctxinari. Do not repost, nor claim it as your own. It is a basic art and writer's rules. Thank you for understanding.

I don’t mind MDNI / NSFW accounts following me and liking my posts/content. But I will make it clear that I WILL NOT allow nsfw accounts to make inappropriate fanfics/art of my ocs/characters nor will I interact with said account since I AM a minor. (I have seen a lot of discourse, again, about minors being in NSFW spaces and even some adults defending minors and that’s not okay. A friend and I have done some research and have collected the above materials to show minors [those who are under the age of 18] that it is illegal for a minor to write, read, or interact with any sort of NSFW work. When you do so you are putting adults at risk because adults will have to answer for your actions. You are putting adults at risk of legal trouble. When an adult blocks you it is not because they are trying to be mean, it’s because they are trying to protect themselves and in existence you from anything bad happening. Nobody wants to end up in jail over a fictional story. It’s not fair to adults that you’re putting them at such risk because you want to read about your favorite characters having sex.)

All in all, welcome to my blog! Stay positive, stay happy, and have a nice day dear!

ヽ(o＾▽＾o)ノ ✦

✦ Mutuals can also ask for my discord, don’t be shy! ✦

-This digital is copyrighted by © CTXINARI | OFFICIAL.FRANA | 2024 — reblogs are greatly appreciated dear ✰-

#writers on tumblr #artists on tumblr #call of duty #cod mw2 #cod mw3 #masterlist

3 notes · View notes

celestial-alignment · 1 year ago

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Hi! I hope it’s okay to hop into your ask box to talk about tagging. I feel like we’ve been on tumble for a similar amount of time, and I just wanted your thoughts or opinions on what I feel like is incorrect tagging. The 2 main sides I’ve seen have been on people that are tagging their content but they are tagging it as “s*x” or “p*wp*w” or something with a cutesy name that makes it more g rated. But they do not tag it as sex or gun violence as well. Which in turn mean that people are not able to filter this content or make an informed choice on weather they want to engage with that content. And then the second is where people are tagging with specific tags, such as character a x character b with the goal of getting as many people to read or engage with their content, but it has nothing to do with this character. I’ve been comparing it to false advertising. And I understand that tagging on Tumblr has never been great (it’s not AO3), but I really feel like with the fall of other sites Reddit and Twitter being the main that come to mind and this resurgence of Tumblr that the issue has become more pronounced. I feel like the 1st is a safety concern and the second is just rude/inconvenience especially when creators are called out multiple time by different blogs and refuse to except that the way they are tagging is not the way that tagging works on Tumblr or otherwise. I guess I was just wonder if others were seeing the issues or if I was just becoming the grouchy old man screaming at the neighbor kids to get off the lawn. And if it’s not just me, if you or your followers have come up with a way to filter these out. I’ve just resorted to blocking accounts that refuse to tag in a safe or appropriate manner.

Hiya!

It’s always okay to hop in my ask box!

I’ve definitely seen other discussions about the problems of tagging, or lack thereof.

If I’m totally honest, I need to preface my response with saying that I’m perhaps one of the lucky ones in that it is very rare for words or content to trigger me in some debilitating way (I might be too numb to the world, which is concerning in its own right but a topic for another day), but I have loved ones who have had genuine traumas and have been subjected to unexpected triggers. Having not experienced the extreme of it first hand (for me I usually feel strong annoyance at the worst), I have seen how damaging it can be to other people and that makes me very aware of it online, especially Tumblr.

That being said, I wholly agree with you that censoring words in the tags defeats the whole purpose of tagging. You can censor all you like in the post itself or text images, whatever, but the tag blockers simply won’t work if the word in its proper spelling isn’t there. So when people are using asterisks in place of vowels (like s*x) with the intention of being careful and protecting someone? It’s doing the exact opposite.

I agree with the second thing too, about characters and their ships being tacked on to a buttload of other tags for the sake of exposure, even though it isn’t relevant. It’s definitely false advertising! It’s basically click bait. I’m sure there are cases where it was not intentional, perhaps the characters and their ship have a small role in a longer fic, so the author or op thought it was important to include them, but if they aren’t the focus, and if they aren’t important enough to the rest of the story if it’s a fic, I think it’s probably best to leave it out of the tags. Worst case scenario for not tagging it is the people who like it will be pleasantly surprised. The people who don’t like it can keep scrolling or for fics will just have to tolerate it for the small part that it’s included in the story.

Tagging on Tumblr is very much a unique animal. I never see it translate well onto other platforms, so a lot of newbies on this site probably go the Tik Tok or Instagram route where the more tags the better, even if they’re just barely relevant. I once put my own comments in hashtags on Instagram, and someone called me out on it not understanding why I was writing long tags that don’t even exist in the algorithm. LMAO oops

Block tags when you can, block accounts when you have to. I’ve done it here and there, because in a place like Tumblr, the more comfortable you can make it for yourself the better. It’s not always worth the fight or the argument in this wild west site.

Also, I know I am not always the best at tagging things. Usually I get lazy when it comes to tagging specific fandoms, but I do try because I know some of the things I like may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s okay!

I am also always open to anyone who needs to kick me in the ass to tag better or something. Scrolling Tumblr half awake most of the time does not make for a conscientious reblogger…

Thank you for the ask! I don’t always voice my opinions on things here, but I don’t want you to be the only old man screaming at those kids on your lawn. I’m right there next to you shaking a fist at them. You’re not alone in this, Anon, I agree all the way around and I know there are others who agree as well.

I’d love to hear everyone else’s thoughts on this too!

#ask #tagging #tumblr tags #tag properly

2 notes · View notes

olderthannetfic · 2 years ago

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Mild barriers to entry are good. They protect actual communities and allow different internet ecosystems that feel different one from another. Dumbing things down just results in a worse version of Instagram or whatever other popular app, and that’s not competitive because people can just go to the already-successful hellhole in question.

@staff If you won’t listen to us, maybe you’ll care what a Tech person thinks.

This is from Fan is a Tool-Using Animal by Maciej Cegłowski (the Pinboard guy):

“Something counter-intuitive to me was a lot of this fan stuff, they would use tools and web sites and plugins and Greasemonkey, like five things at once, and it’s really hard to get your mind around it. My instinct was couldn’t this be done more easily or more intuitively? But it’s actually the difficulty of the tools and the norms of the community [that] protect it. It takes a while. You have to be committed to start contributing because you have to learn how all this stuff works.

This isn’t just fandom. You know those awful PHP-based message boards like, I like to scuba dive so I go to the scuba board sometimes and I have no idea how to use it but there’s some really informative people on there. I think that these terrible interfaces actually serve a protective function where they keep the community isolated from just drive-by comments. If you ever go to the Guardian or the New York Times, places where you can actually comment very easily without ever having been there before, the comments are just totally trash. And I wonder sometimes if it’s because it’s too easy to do it.”

Number 6 is great. Stability is something all users value.

3 is... well, it depends how you implement it. Making it easy to go see all the contentful responses is great. Making it ultra easy for a new person to just dive in in total ignorance to stink up a conversation with their unconsidered opinions is horseshit.

For me, I primarily access Tumblr through my notifications page, and I most certainly don’t want any of the contentful interactions collapsed. What I already do is to hide all likes and all reblogs without commentary or tags. Those are meaningless cruft, not real interactions.

Tumblr is great not because things can go viral in no-comment reblogs but because, now that the platform is quieter, the real conversation is here and not on garbage like Twitter.

It’s entirely possible that Tumblr’s current style of infinite massive image uploads simply isn’t financially sustainable with the community Tumblr has actually attracted and without the cash cow of people paying for sexually explicit materials, but trying to become some shittier, newer app with worse features and more 13-year-olds isn’t going to fix that.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience.

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content.

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up.

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant.

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are.

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds.

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs.

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread.

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads.

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user��s Following feed.

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it.

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages.

Test what the right daily push notification limit is.

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users.

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

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malleux · 4 years ago

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spell [2]. | corpse husband

part one ; part three

-> Pairing: Corpse Husband x Fem!Reader

-> Genre: Fluff, Slight Angst

-> Warnings: Hate Comments, Self Doubt, Anxiety, Cursing

-> A/N: thank you for 1k notes on part one! i’m so glad everyone likes my work. it’s really nice getting this much love after taking a hiatus on my fire emblem writing blog. i hope y’all enjoy it and stay on the lookout for part three!

corpse husband taglist is closed!

Two weeks.

It’s been two weeks since you joined Sean’s Among Us stream.

While that was your first public appearance, you had joined three others after that and already you were blowing up on almost every social media platform you had. The attention was kind of nice, you had to admit, but sometimes the anxiety of becoming a public figure weighed heavily on your shoulders.

During that time, you turned to your friends who were used to such scrutiny: Sean, Felix, and now Corpse, who you’ve been talking to every day for those two weeks.

It was another one of those nights where, at 1am, you were on Facetime with said man. His screen was dark, as usual. He hadn’t shown his face yet and you respected that. You didn’t need to see him to talk to him, or be his friend, or develop a slight crush on him. All of which you did.

The call was relatively silent on your end. Corpse was on Facetime with you, yes, but he was also on a call in Discord, once again playing Among Us.

You often wondered if playing that game was all your new friends did anymore.

You stayed quiet, letting Corpse play the game and avoiding his fans finding out about your call. You had college work to finish anyways, so the silence was rather helpful.

“We should ask Y/N if she wants to play. I wanna meet her.” Sykkuno’s voice rang out from the Discord call. He was right- you’d never met him. He and Corpse seemed extremely close, though, so you’d love to talk to him. A friend of your crush friend was a friend of yours.

“She’s busy tonight.” Corpse responded.

“Yeah, she’s got an exam coming up- wait, how do you know?” Sean joined in, questioning Corpse.

“Uh, I mean we’re on Facetime right now, I guess.” Your heart sped up- now his fans knew. “She’s studying. We’re just hanging out.”

“Didn’t you guys ‘hang out’ last night as well? It seems like you’re trying to take my best friend away from me.” Sean joked back.

“I mean, I definitely am.”

Your breath caught in your throat. What was that supposed to mean? Sean was obviously kidding, but the tone in Corpse’s voice wasn’t the one he used when he was joking as well.

Felix suddenly butted in. “Ooooh, I think Corpse-y has a little crush.”

“And if I do?”

Y/N.exe has stopped working.

꧁꧂

Three weeks, now, that you’ve been talking to Corpse daily.

One week since Corpse’s crush comment and one week that you’ve endured countless mentions and tags on Instagram and Twitter, constantly talking about #CorpseY/N.

You didn’t really mind the shipping, often losing yourself in daydreams about driving those two hours down from your apartment in Los Angeles down to San Diego and running into his arms. It didn’t help when he mentioned wanting you to come visit one day.

You just worried about how Corpse felt about them. He was still relatively new to blowing up on the internet as well, his fame suddenly skyrocketing in the past few months, so you weren’t sure if he was comfortable with them. You didn’t want to bring it up, either, fearing that the discussion would make things awkward between the two of you.

For now, you were rather content with just scrolling through the #CorpseY/N hashtag, looking at the pictures and nice things people had to say about you both.

“they’re so cute when they talk to each other, you can just tell Corpse meant it when he said he was trying to steal Y/N away.”

“#CorpseY/N is my new favorite thing. Everyone shut up this is all I’ll be talking about from now on.”

“God why can’t they just be together already? #CorpseY/N”

Everyone was so supportive and sweet, it almost made you feel like you already were Corpse’s girlfriend. Although your heart hurt when you were brought back to reality, you couldn’t help but love the comments that everyone left. They were amazing.

Until they weren’t.

There are always two sides of the same coin. Along from the supporters and their loving actions, there were also those who seethed at the idea of you and Corpse.

They scrutinized everything about you to the point that you made your Instagram account- already with 30k followers- private.

Haters talked about you. Your body, your personality, how you weren’t worthy to even talk to Corpse and the rest of the Youtubers, and so much more. You’ve spent many nights with your Facetime mic muted so that Corpse couldn’t hear the small sobs coming from you.

These thoughts were almost always on the back of your mind, but you were sometimes able to push them away.

Like now- as you focused on your exam. Well, tried to focus. There comes to be a time where one can only hear so many negative things about themselves before they can’t ignore it anymore.

But alas, you tried your hardest and finished your exam, before walking out of the room and pulling out your phone. Now, you had a break before your new classes started and you’ve never been more relieved. You pulled up a certain contact and clicked on the message icon, beginning to type.

you:

i’m finished! up next, a break.

corpse:

I hope you did well. How long is your break?

you:

two weeks!

corpse:

Come spend it in San Diego

You stopped in your tracks, taken aback by the offer. You really didn’t think that he’d invite you over, but you weren’t about to complain. Instead, you sent back an ‘I’ll pack tonight :)’ and rushed home to do just that.

Corpse called you as you packed, just like he calls every night. You were used to the routine now, often falling asleep around 3am as he stays on the phone, doing whatever he does with his ruined sleep schedule until you wake up and say good morning.

Tonight, however, you were too jittery to sleep. You stayed up all night with Corpse, talking about anything and everything, like usual.

What wasn’t usual, though, was how distracted he sounded. It made you nervous- was he having second thoughts about inviting you over? Was something wrong?

Your thoughts nearly overwhelmed you, forcing you to say something.

“Are you okay, Corpse?” You tried to hide the small shake in your voice.

“Hm? Uh, yeah, yeah, everything’s good. Why?”

“It doesn’t sound like it. What’s going on? You’re acting off.”

His side of the phone was silent for a moment, before he let out a sigh. “I’m just thinking about what I’ve got to do before you get here tomorrow. Like, cleaning and stuff.”

“Pshh, that doesn’t matter to me.” You waved your hand, even though he couldn’t see it in the darkness of your room.

“It’s just that, my apartment isn’t… the best. It’s small and there’s only one bedroom and it’s kind of shitty. I just don’t want it to be even more shitty.”

“Corpse, I’m coming there to spend time with you, not your apartment. I don’t care what any of that shit looks like. I’m going to be looking at you and hanging out with you. Not your apartment.” You didn’t mean to go on a tangent of reassurance, but you truly meant all of your words. “Hell, I might not even see the apartment because I already know I won’t be able to look away from you.”

“I- God, give me a minute. That took me off guard.” He laughed. “But thank you. I may not even be able to clean because I’ll be distracted too.”

“By what?”

“You, standing in front of me, in person.” You could hear the smile in his voice. “That’s a fucking dream come true.”

┎┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┒

taglist: @namjoons-crabssss @lookingforaplacetosleep @teenloves @princess00wifi @pillowjj @nvm-idgaf @creativedogs @wildflowerwhore @chillininahottub-withaghost @whyisquill @holosexualunicorn7000 @ourheavenlyemotions

┖┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┚

#fanfiction #x reader #fic blog #writing #corpse husband x reader #corpse x reader #corpse husband #series #lay writes #youtubers #youtubers x reader

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newronantic · 3 years ago

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HAIKYUU!! FICS

so this is mostly gonna be for myself to keep track of my favorite fics i’ve read, but hey if anyone else wants to check some of these out then thats great

MHA one is up!!

ill keep updating this as i read more, feel free to send me suggestions!

KageHina

plain as day - emleewrites

In which Hinata has spent the better part of the last twenty years putting his heart and soul into volleyball, hoping to be recognised, to be noticed. And yet he spends all these years also thinking of himself as rather plain, beyond his lack of height and bright hair, and not really noticeable at all.

In Transit - Mysecretfanmoments

Hinata finds that he likes standing close to Kageyama on buses and trains. It doesn't mean anything--probably. Maybe.

I like the way your clothes smell - Mysecretfanmoments

Power outages, ghost stories, and the presence of a certain orange-haired boy lead to bad decision-making on Tobio's part. He'd planned to keep his crush a secret; the universe has other plans.

Chaotic Neutral - akaraka

Who's this Kageyama person on twitter and is he gay?

1: Anonymous: see title

2: Anonymous: curry king

3: Anonymous >> 1: It's the curry king, obviously. Have you been using his memes this whole time without knowing who he was?

4: Anonymous: 1) Hinata Shouyou's boyfriend 2) See above

jellyfish - mysterytwin

At the beginning of his last year at Karasuno High School, Hinata Shouyou starts a list and calls it THINGS TO DO BEFORE GRADUATION, all with high hopes that he’ll be able to complete it before his time runs out.

TsukkiYama

Try This On For Size - CloudMonsta

A lot changed for Yamaguchi Tadashi over the course of high school. He started trying on dresses, for one.

The Great Yamaguchi-Tsukishima Split (Capitalization Necessary) - WyYeuw

"But no, the current situation isn’t normal. This situation requires the full attention of the team.

No, what’s really concerning this time around, is that Yamaguchi is the one ignoring Tsukishima.”

Yamaguchi confesses. Tsukishima fucks up—like, really fucks up. The volleyball club notices and loses a week’s worth of practice.

IwaOi

Terrarium - sausaged

He's practically a professional at being proactive (lies, lies, and lies when it comes to Iwaizumi).

At this point, is he really happy with just staying best friends forever? Will he be writing journals and collecting rocks forever (he will, he knows, but that is aside from the point)?

Can he really tag his Instagram photos with #YOLO if he doesn't actually put that phrase into practice?

A story about Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime, plants, and rocks.

They Say it Rain Diamonds on Jupiter - exsao

"You're in love with him."

Hajime considers denying it. He considers deliberately choking on his drink to express surprise, to create a distraction by spitting onto the man in front of him's pristine white shirt and causing a commotion. Instead, he swallows his mouthful of soda and heaves a small sigh once his mouth is free.

"Yeah," he says instead.

He's never been good at lying, anyway.

bait and switch - Stylographic_Blue_Rhapsody

Oikawa's university volleyball team knows he's in a long-distance relationship with someone from high school. They imagine a sweet-faced girl that matches his sarcasm with patience. They are so incredibly wrong.

my heart is where it’s always been - foreverautumn

Iwaizumi places his phone down carefully.

Oikawa. Pining after someone. There’s no way.

(Iwaizumi knows he shouldn’t care who Oikawa might have feelings for, but within the span of three days, it’s somehow the only thing he can think about.)

KuroKen

Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life - todxrxki

Kuroo Tetsurou runs a private Twitter account where he's constantly tweeting about how desperately in love he is with Kozume Kenma. Little does he know that Kenma sees all the tweets and keeps referencing the account in an attempt to get Kuroo to confess to him. / Or, five times Kuroo didn't notice Kenma hinting about his private Twitter account, and one time he finally did.

the things that get caught in the valves of his heart - ghostpot

Emotional competency is not exactly Kuroo's strong suit. Kenma finds it quite amusing.

Accidentally In Love - todxrxki

Kuroo frowns, but then slowly, the corners of his mouth lift up into a smirk. "Well, if it's so unbelievable, why don't we give it a try?"

Kenma glances up at him curiously. "What do you mean?"

"Let's do the 36 questions to fall in love," Kuroo says, still smirking stupidly. "If we don't fall in love, then you're right, it's bullshit. But if we do somehow..." Kuroo waggles his eyebrows. "Then I win." / Kuroo decides he and Kenma should do the 36 questions to fall in love as a joke, but they both start to realize they might actually be in love already.

the galaxy is endless (i thought we were, too) - cosmogony

TW: major character death

Kuroken AU where the last words your soulmate will say to you appear on your skin when you turn 16, and how Kenma and Kuroo learn what this means over the course of their lives

even if you’re ahead for a bit, i will catch up - ghostpot

Kuroo first confesses when they're sticky-fingered, wide-eyed kids, and subsequently every day after that. Kenma takes a while to come around.

you’re the brake lines failing (as my car swerves off the freeway) - ghostpot

Kenma thinks that Kuroo looks ugly with his head bent against the arm of the couch like that. Then Kenma thinks that he wants to marry him, and is promptly thrown into the 5 stages of grief.

teach me the way home - icespyders

“Don’t go far off, not even for a day, because —

because — I don’t know how to say it: a day is long

and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station

when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.”

Kuroo and Kenma grow up in transit.

in this universe - crossbelladonna

Living with Kuroo is sometimes, just like this. It always feels surreal like he's living half a world and a lot of things rush by too quickly. Kenma feels like he'd watched him come and go in a blink, eyes wide and wordless as the shared space went snug in an instant and far larger in the next.

All this, and a glass of water.

Beginning’s End - todxrxki

Somehow over the course of Kenma's lifetime, he’s never really had an opportunity to miss Kuroo. He’s always been there. Even when they went to different schools, Kuroo would meet him afterwards so they could walk home together, shoulders brushing, Kuroo occasionally taking the opportunity to guide him when his nose was buried in the newest video game. The thought of Kuroo not being there anymore is uncomfortable, to say the least. / Kozume Kenma's third year and the changes the year brings in himself and his relationship with Kuroo Tetsurou.

All I Want for Christmas is You - todxrxki

“Kuro,” he says. “You’re a single guy.”

“Yeah, great, thanks for pointing that out.”

“And my parents already know you, plus they already know you like guys or whatever so… what if you pretended to be my date for Christmas dinner?” / In which Kenma recruits his housemate and best friend Kuroo to be his fake date for Christmas.

BokuAka

just to miss the sun - rosevtea

Everything begins to implode when MSBY Jackals outside hitter Bokuto Koutarou crashes Akaashi's livestream.

Operation BokuAka - kazzydolyn

After spending two whole years watching Bokuto and Akaashi pine for one another, the rest of the Fukuroudani Volleyball Club has had enough. When everyone meets up for a reunion dinner, the team decides to play matchmaker and finally get the two of them together. Unfortunately, their plan starts to fall apart when they discover that Akaashi is already dating someone. And apparently so is Bokuto. What a strange coincidence.

bitter - silvercistern

He accepted his classmate's chocolates gracefully, then declared his lack of interest with as much dignity as he could muster. She deserved the courtesy. At least she'd acknowledged that Valentine's Day was all about her, and not about him in the slightest.

Because if any of these girls had taken the time to actually get to know him, they’d quickly realize something even more important than his lack of interest in girls.

And that was that Akaashi hated sweets.

In Another Life - LittleLuxray

TW: major character death

Sleeping didn't come as easy as it used to. Bokuto knew this, and now Akaashi did, too.

The hospital AU that no body asked for, but that I took upon myself to write.

120% yes - pissedofsandwich

TOKYO FRANCHISE COMING SOON @OnigiriMiya

in reply to @bokkun_official

Congratulations! In celebration of your historic engagement, please DM us so we can send you a free membership code with a 25% discount on every fourth purchase!

Kissing Ace - karasunovolleygays

It happens right after training camp.

Akaashi Keiji has a secret he has guarded since he was a child. He won’t go so far as to call it a fear, but more of an aspect of himself of which he is horribly mortified. No one on the team knows about it, and Akaashi does his best to keep it that way.

But years of dodging hugs and casual contact come to naught in the blink of an eye and the swipe of a hand.

daisy rings and frivolous things (i am deliriously in love with you) - gabstar

Akaashi Keiji is in love. Bokuto Koutarou is a star. Everyone on Fukurodani has a gambling problem.

SakuAtsu

The MSBY Black Jackals Read Thirst Tweets - isaksara (syailendra)

Sakusa’s eyes are very dark naturally, sucking in all surrounding rays of light and crushing them in his pupils. For an athlete, he is rather pale. His lips look very pink in comparison. Atsumu is suddenly catastrophically aware that in this instance, ‘accent’ is a euphemism. “Good enough for your Olympic-size ego, Miya?”

(In which Atsumu realizes that he is attracted to Sakusa Kiyoomi in the most inconvenient way possible.)

A Liar’s Truth - internetpistol

In which Sakusa Kiyoomi is raised to believe that gay people go to hell but then takes one look at Miya Atsumu and thinks, then why the hell did God make them so fucking hot?

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thehollowprince · 4 years ago

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Queerbaiting vs. Fan Service

For whatever reason, I decided to take a stroll through The Falcon and The Winter Soldier tags after the second episode, and I was slightly distressed (and mostly annoyed) with how many people were labeling the interactions between Sam and Bucky as queerbaiting. You can imagine my confusion.

Now, as a gay man, nothing would please me more to see a relationship between two men in a big budget action franchise, even if it is just the MCU. Ignoring the reality that this is Disney and that they'll probably never have a gay or bisexual main character in anything, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is not the place to draw that line in the sand.

I've been on this app for about eight years now, and I can't tell you the number of times I've seen people make and reblog posts about the desire to see more men be friends with one another, to not fall victim to the toxic masculinity. How many times have you opened opened this app and seen posts about "let men cry" or "let men be intimate with each other without making it weird"? And yet, every time, almost as if on a timer, the moment two guys (either in a show or actual people) look at each other for longer than .05 seconds, a ship is born.

Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with shipping. Especially when you factor in the fact that same sex romances are severely lacking in modern media. I myself am attracted to the idea of SamBucky, because they have foundation there that if the producers decided, could be used to build a relationship off of. I did the same with Steve and Bucky in the MCU. Like I said, there's nothing wrong with shipping, but some people take it too far. In this instance, I've been seeing too many people claim "queerbaiting" because Sam rescued Bucky from falling to his death under a moving truck or because of the therapy scene where they had to face each other and get real close.

That is not queerbaiting.

For starters, it's been two episodes. The show isn't even halfway over. Not that I expect Disney to actually do something like that, but it's precisely this need to jump the gun and declare something that makes the problem worse within the fandom. And more to the point, I'm not entirely sure many of you know what the term queerbaiting actually means.

Queerbaiting is when a show or movie or whatever, sets up a relationship between two people of the same sex, has everything point in the direction of them becoming a romantic pairing, only to, at the last second, have one or both of them enter into a heterosexual relationship or be killed off.

A great example of this, and the first that pops into my mind, is The Magicians, specifically Queliot. Now, anyone who followed me, especially when the show as airing, knows I'm not the biggest fan of that ship, but in the fourth season of the show, they spent a great deal of time setting up Quentin and Eliot finding their way to each other, only for the production to kill off Quentin in the finale of the season. One could even argue that having Quentin chose Alice for a reconciliatory relationship after they did everything to set up Quentin and Eliot is another form of queerbaiting, eschewing the same-sex romance in favor of a heterosexual one.

Now, circling back to The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, what we have here is not a case of queerbaiting. Production of the show, and the MCU in general, more than likely scour Twitter and Instagram and whatever else and see the fandom reaction to certain ships/pairings, and specifically make scenes or scenarios where those two characters have to interact. That is called fan service, an entirely different animal.

A great example of fan service would be Teen Wolf. As anyone who has been following me knows, I've been talking about this topic a lot recently, thanks to one particularly persistent anon. If you've ever interacted with the Teen Wolf fandom, you know that the big ship that dominated it was Sterek, despite it being something that wasn't based at all in canon. Jeff Davis, after seeing how fans reacted to the few interactions of Derek and Stiles in season one, gave the fandom a more in season two, such as the pool scene, or when they were both paralyzed by Kanima venom in the sheriff's station, the dream sequence at the end of season three, or the ride to Mexico in season four. Hell, even the comedic sequence in the final season of Stiles "rescuing" Derek from the FBI to make it back to Beacon Hills for the final showdown was fan service. What it wasn't, was queerbaiting, because Sterek wasn't something that the show set up. It was something that the fandom set up, which more power to them, but with that being established, people still got mad because the show didn't go the way they (the fandom) decided it should have gone.

This same thing happened with Stucky. The idea of Bucky and Steve was appealing. If either one of them had been a woman in the MCU then their relationship would have very easily been interpreted in canon as romantic, but as it stands, that's not the case. They were just two very close friends.

Brining it back to my original point, we have Sambucky, and no matter how much fandom kicks and screams and demands, it won't happen in the show. It's alright to ship them, because I do see the appeal, but at the end of the day, too many people are getting upset about something that fandom made up and that canon doesn't deliver on, despite the two being unaffiliated. You want to ship Sam and Bucky, I fully support you in that endeavor. I myself like the idea of it, and often tag posts as such, but calling it queerbaiting in an attempt to shame people for not supporting it is misleading.

Bottom line: queerbaiting is a very specific thing and there are actual shows out there that are perpetrators of it. Please try and actually understand what queerbaiting is before you simply throw the term out at every inconvenience.

#queerbaiting #fan service #sambucky #tfatws #the falcon and the winter soldier

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writing-for-life · 1 year ago

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I think you’re brushing on something really important here, @tickldpnk8

Fics often don’t get reblogged.

There are always a few notable exceptions (usually in circles of mutuals/friends, or the odd fic that takes off for whatever reason), but fic writers have been talking about this for aeons.

Apologies, I’m about to take this on a massive tangent that’s only rudimentary to do with the OC issue—but it exacerbates it…

I get that it’s visually more appealing to reblog art. I also get that some people specifically curate their blogs to look a certain way, and maybe text isn’t as appealing. I have a lot of art on my blog as well.

Is it easier/quicker though to reblog an art post vs a fic post? I’d argue no. The only difference is that people (probably rightly so) feel they need to read it first before they recommend it to others. That, I do understand. For fics we have read and authors we already know, it’s not quite so straightforward though, so I’m still trying to understand what the issue is.

I mean, like/reblog ratios generally have gone down the pan, which I truly believe is linked to how engagement works on Instagram, Twitter or TikTok. People are used to quickly hitting a like button, and that’s it. And no matter how many times posts make the rounds explaining Tumblr operates on reblogs and everyone agrees with it—the majority still don’t put it into practice.

And although it is a problem for all creators, the fact remains that it’s a much bigger problem for writers than artists. And don’t get me wrong, nobody’s perfect. I sometimes sort of bookmark my writer friends’ stuff for later and then simply forget to load it into the queue or reblog it. Or it’s something new that I’d really like to read first, and then I don’t find the time. But we are talking about general trends here, and they are clear as day.

So that problem already exists, and then you move down another rung on the ladder if you don’t write for the big ships (or smut, or ideally a combination of both 🤣). The engagement that’s already fairly low compared to other things then dwindles towards 0, usually a few likes. And while they’re truly and deeply appreciated—in terms of exposing stuff to new readers, they’re more or less useless. We need the reblogs and tag appreciation as much as the visual artists.

And it sometimes feels hard to talk about these things because they sound like we’re only in it for the engagement, or as if we’re ungrateful. Most of us write because we have a story to tell, and we’d do it anyway. But I wrote this in another post—if art turns into a one-way-street/monologue, it begins to lose its meaning. What writers need as much as the next creative is some sort of feedback that our art meant something to someone. Otherwise, where is the point in publishing it? And there *is* a noticeable trend to take fics for granted and never tell people that we’ve enjoyed it.

It’s not about the reblogs, or the numbers per se. It is about fostering community, about talking to each other instead of having the feeling everyone is just shouting into the void.

And it’s not that we write something and then lean back and hope the readers will magically come. Most of us promote our own stuff. But if we are the only ones doing it, it’s not going to change anything. And lowish engagement is an experience most writers on here share, even more so if they don’t write for bigger ships, or if it isn’t smut/PWP.

It’s not quite as bad on Ao3 (although it exists there, too). My hit to engagement ratio is pretty solid. It’s better on shorter fics (despite massively fewer hits), and on my longer fic, it was better when I still published new chapters every week. Now the fic is finished, hits still go up, but people engage via comments (and kudos) far less. And I think that’s also something many writers talk about: As soon as a fic is fully published, literally no one comments anymore. Some readers even say they think it comes across as “weird” to comment on an older fic. And I’m sorry, I just don’t get those mental gymnastics at all. Either I like something, or I don’t. And if I do, I comment on it, even if the fic is 10 years old. And the “I can only kudos once”-thing also doesn’t fly in my opinion. If you reread, or if you want to kudos on a different chapter, just write “Kudos” or “💜” or something into the comments box. It literally takes no time.

Personally, I don’t care about hits. I care most about comments, because they open the door to what fandom is truly about: Community. I prefer fewer hits but a handful of people actually talking about their experiences reading my fic than tons of hits and kudos.

And those comments don’t need to be something epic or a full review. A quick comment that takes one minute to write is as appreciated as a massive essay. Plus, writers of longer fics also don’t expect people to read the whole fic before they comment. People can and should comment on chapters. We truly love it. Even if it’s just a copy and paste of a line with, “I laughed so hard,” or, “that really got to me,” or, “loved this.”

Maybe we can all make that a goal more often, myself included…

"In fanfiction you can characterize the characters however you like and if readers aren't happy it's their fucking problem"

Ok stupid question but why would you write a character completely differently than he is in canon? I mean, it's a genuine question not a criticism. I want to understand, but I genuinely don't get it, and I've spent way too much time scratching my head over it, so fuck it, I'm asking.

In canon adjacent fics I mean... I can understand for AUs which I guess are easy ways to write original stories and get an audience for them. But regarding canon compliant/adjacent fics, why writing said characters if you don't like them the way they are and are going to write them OOC? Why not writing original characters? I mean, if the point is just to write characters who look like x actors/actresses, nothing's easier, so...

Yep please don't get angry at me, I mean no harm.

#the ole tumblr reblog rant #support writers

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sleepy-shutin · 3 years ago

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Rating “DID Faker Symptoms"#2 - Bingo Edition

i found another DID faker bingo, specifically for tiktok, from r/fakedisordercringe and i have to rate it because this is pathetic.

used to cosplay: if you’re referring to those people that used to cosplay, like, anime characters, and then suddenly discovered DID and now they have a system of 400 introjects and they post videos of them cosplaying and saying “not a cosplay!” but then tag their videos with “#cosplay”, i’d probably agree with you. but in general, i can see plenty of reasons people with DID would have used to or currently do cosplay, so i feel like this is a bit of a broad experience to say that all people who claim to have DID that used to cosplay is a bit of an inaccuracy. overall, somewhat inaccurate.

dream/wilbur/tubbo/etc etc: yeah, i agree that most of the teenage DSMP fans on tiktok who claim to have DID with 100 DSMP fictives or something probably don’t have DID and are just confused. it is more than likely they found out about DID through tiktok or instagram or twitter and then proceeded to only do their reading on said websites without actually trying to understand the disorder through research, and then decided that the myth that “DID is sooo under researched” was true. accurate.

alternative clothing and heavy makeup: i don’t agree that someone dressing in a certain way shows that they’re faking DID. it just shows they have a sense of fashion and know how they want to dress. this is a stupid criteria. deeply inaccurate.

fictives/factives/fuzztives: someone having a fictive/factive isn’t a sign of a faker. i have an introject (’factive’ specifically) of my abusive mother, for example, which is an extremely common experience in DID. ‘fuzztive’ is a stupid term that i dislike quite a bit, but overall this criteria is dumb. inaccurate.

fake accents: some alters can have accents, this has been documented before, if i remember correctly. the reason they come off as poor though, is because if someone speaks only english and lives in america, they’re not going to have the muscle or brain memory to pronounce, say, a british accent perfectly because they haven’t lived there or grown up there. it’s why you get the pronunciations of words in other languages that you don’t speak incorrectly, you don’t have that muscle memory. overall, inaccurate.

on camera rapid switching: rapid switching generally happens when you are in distress, and honestly i find it unlikely that if someone is in that much distress, they’ll be able to whip out a camera and film it unless it’s happening on a livestream and you happen to get triggered. maybe if you happen to get triggered while filming for whatever reason, sure. overall, mostly accurate but i can see some circumstances where it’s not a faking/over-exaggerating thing.

does not want to get diagnosed: if someone doesn’t want to get diagnosed because it may impact their ability to get things like certain jobs that require your medical history, then i can understand that. but most of the time, these people don’t want to get diagnosed because they don’t want treatment, or misunderstand the impacts that a diagnosis can have on your life. it will not take away your ability to drive, get a house, or get most jobs, because it’s not legal (at least in america) for most of those places to look through your medical history. in certain jobs, such as the military, government, and healthcare jobs may require looking through your medical history, as well as potentially adoption agencies and social workers for foster care (i’m not 100% sure on that one), but that’s about it. getting diagnosed will not ruin your life. overall, i think this is more of a general misinformation thing rather than a faker red flag. somewhat inaccurate.

alters dating each other in the headspace: there’s actually several good reasons this can happen. two parental alters may be dating/married because they may be representations of the internal parents that the person never had externally, and may be caretakers. on the flipside, they could represent their own abusive parents and troubled home life. it can also show that two alters have a very close connection in some form, or that they’re pretty integrated and have a good, stable relationship with each other. overall, mostly inaccurate.

opposed to integration: 100% this is some malingerer or confused person bullshit every time, because it shows this person has not done a single second of any actual reading into DID, and shows they don’t understand what integration and fusion are at all. most likely, they learned this shit from the poorly informed communities they are in, which means that they are not qualified to self-diagnose. i say self-diagnose specifically because the people that are against integration are in no way shape or form in therapy, because a therapist would call them out and tell them the differences between integration and fusion. accurate.

several piercings: no, FDC, having a sense of fashion is not a sign of faking. get over yourself and find real symptoms of malingered or factitious DID. deeply inaccurate.

brightly colored hair: see above. inaccurate.

self-diagnosed: as a self-diagnosed person with DID, i actually see both sides to this argument very well and have a complex relationship with the concept of self diagnosis as a whole. as someone who’s been stuck in an abusive situation for a very long time, lacks the money or resources to see a therapist for diagnosis/treatment, and has had to do the hard reading into DID to learn about its structure and treatment, i support self diagnosis. however, that doesn’t mean everyone is doing it correctly. when you self diagnose, you have to do the hard reading into the disorder you believe you may have, more than just a fucking google search and a look into webmd. you have to do the hard reading, read books and papers. you have to accept that you could be wrong, even if it feels unlikely to you, and you should come up with a differential diagnosis for what you could be experiencing if you’re not experiencing what you think you are. you should also accept that what you’re experiencing may not be abnormal at all, once again, even if it feels or is unlikely for you. that is a RESPONSIBLE self-diagnosis. most people on the internet are doing it horrifically irresponsibly, and even handing out poorly-researched diagnoses over the internet to other people. this is incredibly irresponsible and gets people hurt and sets them up for failure. overall, i fall into a somewhat inaccurate.

“endogenic systems are valid”: this is a syscourse topic and is left up to whoever is reading this to decide if this is a sign of a faker or not. i don’t care. neutral.

lives in a nice house: oh, sorry, i forgot people who live in nice houses can’t be abused?? my ex-stepfather abused and traumatized me and my sister, and his parents were incredibly rich, as in, one-percenter rich. he had borderline and bipolar that were undiagnosed for years, and even after getting diagnosed, he refused treatment and refused to get better, and was also a drug addict/alcoholic that was in and out of rehab for years on end. i don’t live with him anymore, and haven’t for years, but since then he has been in and out of my life where i live now for quite a while up until i turned 18. at a first glance, people might’ve thought i lived comfortably because my step-grandparents were as rich as god. this was not even remotely the case, and this is what gets rich kids ignored when they are being abused. just because they’ve never starved doesn’t mean that they aren’t being abused or traumatized. overall, deeply inaccurate, bordering on dangerous.

pluralkit and discord addiction: using a tool designed for systems and a chatting app aren’t really signs of faking. pluralkit isn’t for me, but i know people that use it plenty. i’d argue that a twitter addiction is probably more of a sign than discord and pluralkit, lol. inaccurate.

random splitting new and more alters every week: yeah, this is a sign of malingered/facitious DID. if you’re constantly splitting new alters all the time, that’s a sign you’re in serious distress, not a sign of something cool and good. splitting is not a good thing, it’s actually something DID treatment hopes on stopping, because splitting can and does cause a lot of dysfunction, due to new dissociative barriers, more amnesia, etc. if youre splitting because you watched a new piece of media, if you’re splitting every week, if youre only ever splitting fictives or whatever, consider that you may not have DID, or at the very least, may be confusing kin-related stuff for new alters that aren’t actually there. overall, accurate.

littles who know their sexual orientation: littles aren’t actual children, they are dissociated parts of a whole adult consciousness that identifies as a child due to trauma. they are not real-life children and expecting them to act as such makes you look stupid. besides, many real life children know that they’re interested in the same/opposite genders, or at the very least may know that they like the same/opposite gender more/find these people prettier, but may not understand that they’re straight/gay/bi/whatever until years down the line because they don’t know that it’s an option. overall, inaccurate.

OSDD-1b, so no amnesia, amazing communication between alters: where on earth did FDC get the idea that having OSDD-1b makes you have amazing communication between alters? amnesia is not the only thing that makes communicating with alters difficult, and i’d argue that having OSDD-1b may actually be harder than having DID in some ways *because* you don’t have inter-identity amnesia, which means that it may actually be harder to determine if/when you switch. i can’t speak for OSDD-1b systems, and this is only my interpretation, but jesus christ. overall, deeply inaccurate.

100+ alters “we’re polyfragmented”: having 100+ alters doesn’t make you polyfragmented, being polyfragmented is not “high alter count disorder”, and being polyfragmented is not a sign of faking. that said, many of the people who call themselves polyfragmented are not polyfragmented. if you think that polyfragmentation is just having 100+ parts or splitting a lot, you are horribly misinformed. it’s caused by extremely early-starting and long-lasting trauma and is associated with sadistic and severe forms of abuse. the trauma (which doesn’t have to necessarily be abuse, because people don’t generally beat infants), starts so early that you CAN’T have any coping mechanisms outside of dissociation, not even unhealthy ones, and the trauma can often times last long into teenage and adult years. so yeah, most 15 year olds that call themselves polyfragmented are definitely not polyfragmented. overall, somewhat inaccurate.

typing quirk: having typing quirks isn’t inherently a faker thing, as i can think of many reasons someone might just want to type a certain way. even me, now, typing in all lowercase, can be/is a typing quirk. but saying you can’t control it or “asking me to translate is ableist” is stupid. overall, somewhat inaccurate.

alter with japanese name: oh, sorry, i forgot japanese people with DID don’t exist? but i get what they mean, a non-japanese (often white) person with an alter that has a japanese name. no, not inherently a faker thing, but is a racist thing, lol. overall, inaccurate.

non-human alters: LOL? do you know what kinds of things can cause non-human alters? extreme dehumanization. being told that you aren’t human. shut up, FDC. deeply inaccurate.

LGBTQ+ (at least one trans): ......????????????????????????? this is just straight up homophobia/transphobia???????? not shocked because it’s from reddit, but goddamn. inaccurate.

“the body is a minor”: yeah, i will admit that i don’t think a lot of teenagers that claim to have DID actually have it. the younger they are, the less i believe they have done the reading to actually understand DID enough to properly self-diagnose. however, there are papers about children with DID, and what’s interesting is that it seems the earlier you catch it, the easier it is to treat. overall, mostly accurate.

TL;DR

there was a neutral with this bingo 1 time, and remove that question since i do not count syscourse questions for being too subjective.

this bingo was accurate 3 times, and mostly accurate 2 times, so this bingo is accurate 5 out of 23 times.

this bingo was inaccurate 6 times, somewhat inaccurate 5 times, mostly inaccurate 1 time, deeply inaccurate 5 times, and deeply inaccurate bordering on dangerous 1 time, so this bingo is inaccurate 18 out of 23 times.

in the end, this bingo is more inaccurate than it is accurate.

overall, i give this bingo a rating of 22%.

#-post #-debunking #-accuracy ratings #-fdc #fakedisordercringe #syscourse #actuallydid #actuallydissociative #actuallytraumagenic

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majorxmaggiexboy · 2 years ago

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Terror Social Media Shenanigans:

So Franklin and Fitzjames each have a twitter account dedicated to the,,,,sailing company or whatever they work for. Franklin’s is actually somewhat endearingly grandpa-esque but he has been known to make some wildly out of touch posts that get the whole company in trouble.

Fitzjames’ posts generally read as stuffy and pretentious, recaps of the....sailing company or whatever’s exploits and half the comments are along the lines of “For the love of god will you get to the recipe”

Sofia Cracroft has a platypus fetish tumblr that gradually becomes a political activism blog instead

Crozier was basically forced to also have a Company Twitter, caused a minor scandal by liking one of Sofia’s posts (she also has twitter), but generally leaves the account’s operations to Jopson

this tends to cause a bit of online chaos due to the very distinct difference between Jopson’s posts ( brief, cheerful expedition highlights and more than a few photos of penguins ) and Crozier’s ( rare but typically one-liners about various misfortunes befalling the explorers. And in a few notable cases some drunk, angry threads directed at Fitzjames which led to “THE DISCOVERY GIRLS ARE FIGHTING” trending for over a week )

Dr Stanley posts mainly doomscroll bait

Goodsir publishes the most delightful actual articles about the various expeditions (the....sailing company or whatever, i’ve decided, is some manner of conservation thing. Depending on who is actually leading any given expedition.) His website is very much homemade, he tinkers with it periodically and slowly makes improvements.

Silna runs a conservation and politics blog that Goodsir is an unabashed absolute fan of, and she co-authors several articles with him regarding linguistics

Fitzjames is infinitely more popular on tiktok than he is on twitter

Crozier has a youtube channel he made onetime while drunk and occasionally posts on. Usually unintentional livestreams of various rants. Not many actual followers but occasionally one of his videos will go somewhat viral and people usually wind up sharing with the headline “ANGRY IRISH GUY HAS A POINT”

Jopson appears in the background of some of these videos

the internet thinks Jopson is a cryptid

one video features Crozier reading people’s comments and at one point yelling for Jopson before asking “What is Only Fan? They’re sayin’ you should have an Only Fan.” before turning back to the camera and saying, Emotionally, “Yer all wrong, he should have lots of fans” (Jopson, in the background: *going through an absolute face journey that becomes a popular reaction gif The chat: *losing their damn minds*)

Hodgeson has a weird kind of unintentional asmr channel

Hickey has a blog that everyone is shocked and devastated isn’t lost to the great tumblr purge

Naturally Irving has a channel and a twitter dedicated to religion and scripture-sharing as well as frantically irate religious tirades and he’s constantly getting absolutely roasted but eventually has a video that winds up just being retitled “Oh” where he stops mid-sentence and spends the last thirty seconds of the video going through every possible human emotion in absolute silence and after that there’s always a little rainbow flag in the background of his, considerably more chill videos

Bridgens and Peglar have a literary podcast together and occasionally share their own writing

Collins only posts sporadically and it’s always 50/50 whether it’s going to be something absolutely lovely like manatee gifs or something that winds up more like that one always sunny meme.

Hodgeson, Irving, and Little briefly have a channel on Vine because it’s thought that it’ll be good pr for the sailing company or w/e. people tend to tag their videos as “Three Guys, One Braincell”

Blanky streams on twitch and most of his fans call him grandpa

Little actually has a rather cute instagram with lots of animal pictures (with the stories behind him) but every now and then will make a post that has numerous people replying with variations on “Uh...you good bro?”

Jopson doesn’t actually have his own social media but he appears at the very end of several of Crozier’s unfortunate youtube uploads, as Crozier tends to either fall asleep or just walk off. It’s a running gag for Jopson to come in and turn off the camera. He almost always tells the viewers Good Night first

Neptune, Fagin, and Jacko have more followers than any of the above

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cali-holland · 4 years ago

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An Irregular Romance ★ Harrison Osterfield One Shot

Pairing: Harrison Osterfield X Reader

Summary: Over five years ago, Harrison followed his heart (a.k.a. you) to drama school, and the day he asked you out was the day he discovered you had a boyfriend. He thought that part of his past was behind him, but then he was cast as Leo in The Irregulars and you were cast as Bea. Romance and shenanigans ensue as he tries to navigate the resurrection of his crush on you.

Word Count: 10k

Warnings: spoilers for The Irregulars, swearing, drinking (reader gets v drunk at one point), cheating boyfriend + “open relationship” drama

Masterlist in bio

*Gif is not mine

A/N: inspired by harrison literally saying he followed the girl he liked to drama school but she didn’t like him back; the drama school is the brit school (idk if that’s what he was talking about but age wise it works better); also darci is 18+ in this fic bc it just fits better to make her around their age; plus i had to re-post this bc the tags didn’t work so rip

also just like to say a massive thank you to @duskholland for proofreading this for me :) you’re the best! this fic would be missing 90% of its commas if it wasn’t for you lmao

❁❁❁❁❁

Harrison had been buzzing with excitement all week. While he knew for sure that he had landed the role of Prince Leo in The Irregulars, he had no idea who the other cast members were. His agent learned from Netflix that they’d announce the cast on Saturday, so now here he sat, anxiously awaiting the news as he drank another pint with his good friends.

“Anything yet?” Tuwaine asked, refreshing his Twitter timeline.

“Nope.” Harrison said with a shake of his head as Netflix’s Instagram page remained unchanged as another minute went by.

“Maybe they’re announcing it at midnight.” Tom shrugged, trying to be useful to ease his friend’s nerves.

“Everyone would be asleep.” The blond replied before taking another long drink of his beer.

“Well, congratulations whenever they officially announce it.” Harry stated, standing up with his empty glass. “Next round’s on me.”

The conversation began to wander off, and Harrison found himself deep in thought, pondering his mysterious, new castmates. Would he like them? Would they like him? Were they big names or no names? Were they people he had screen-tested with (because, truthfully, he only screen-tested with a few girls, but even then, he didn’t screen test with all of the potential actresses)? As he got stuck, trying to think of someone he’d actually liked when they screen-tested together, he was snapped out of his thoughts by Tom yelling.

“It’s up!” Tom held his phone in the middle of the table as he, Harrison, Tuwaine, and Harry, who was now back with more beer, looked over the cast. A sense of pride soared through the group at Harrison’s picture and name being on the official Netflix page for The Irregulars. Harrison read over the other names, wondering if he knew any by happenstance. Just as he recognized one name in particular, Tom spoke up.

“Y/N Y/L/N? Isn’t that the girl you fancied in drama school?” Tom asked with a smirk. His smirk seemed to widen as Harrison blushed a deeper shade of red.

“No, no, no!” Harrison grumbled, taking out his phone to look over the post for himself because maybe, if he looked from his own account, the cast would magically change. When he looked at your name and picture right beside his, realization hit him. He slumped over, putting his head down on the table regretfully.

“I’d nearly forgotten about Haz’s girl that wasn’t his girl.” Tuwaine joked.

“Wait, what girl?” Harry questioned, out of the loop.

Perhaps the stupidest but best choice Harrison had ever made in his life was following you, his biggest crush, to drama school. Why his mother even let him chase after a girl like that was beyond him; he thought she should’ve advised him against it, but with the whole “follow your heart” attitude, his mum was his biggest supporter. He did his best to impress you, to get you to notice him, but you were unfazed by him. The day that he finally got the courage to ask you out was the day that he learned you’d had a boyfriend for the past two months.

Though he didn’t get the girl in drama school, he actually enjoyed it, and look where he ended up now— a new Netflix show was on the horizon for him. Despite the fact that he was (and still sort of is) crushed and embarrassed by the fact that you (very kindly) rejected him five years ago, drama school turned out to be a blessing.

“Harrison, here,” Tom laughed as he clapped his friend’s shoulder as Harrison still didn’t lift his head from his pitiful position, “thought he’d pursue acting because Y/N wanted to be an actress. He didn’t realize that in order to get her attention, he’d have to actually talk to her.”

That was enough to make Harrison lift his head, eyeing his friend questioningly. Cutting Tom off, he defended himself, “What do you mean? I did talk to her.”

“Right— you’d have maybe one conversation with her every three weeks.” Tom turned back to his brother, “Anyway, Haz finally asked her out and, turns out, she’d been dating this other guy for months.”

“Whatever. I only asked her out because you and Tuwaine shoved me into her. Maybe she doesn’t even remember me.” Harrison pulled out his phone to check over Netflix’s Instagram, wanting to see for himself the new cast again. When he opened the app, it notified him of all the new followers he had gotten, and, with one glance at the list of names, one account stood out to him.

‘@yourusername started following you’. Harrison let out a sigh, not wanting to dwell on this any further.

“She works fast.” Harry teased, looking over the blond’s shoulder.

“We’re co-stars now. She probably followed everyone else too.”

As if on cue, a new notification came through his Instagram— ‘@yourusername sent you a message’. With bated breath, he opened it to see the message that confirmed his worst fear— you remembered him.

‘Hey stranger! How have you been?’

❁❁❁❁❁

With every passing day, Harrison’s excitement for this new big project grew… but so did his dread about seeing you again. He wasn’t entirely sure now as to why his gut was filled with butterflies mixed with anxiety just thinking about you. You were only ever nice to him, both before and after he asked you out. It all led him back to the same conclusion that he still had a thing for you, but yet again, maybe it’s just life that your first real crush always has some power over you.

As he walked down the strangely long hallway to the conference room, he adjusted the collar of his letterman’s jacket. Today was the big day— the first table read for The Irregulars, and the first day he’d be confronted by you after all these years. Just on the other side of this door, his co-stars and the main production crew were waiting. Everything was real now; production would start in just a few days.

With one last nervous breath, he pushed open the heavy oak door and entered the room. People were chatting as they sat around the large conference table, which had small name cards at each seat. Harrison’s eyes found you almost immediately. You were locked into a conversation with your co-star, Darci, seated to your left for the table read. To your right was one of the last available seats, and Harrison’s name was on the little card on the table. All hopes of being unnoticed by you were instantaneously gone as he took his seat beside you.

“Fancy seeing you here.” You said to Harrison with a laugh, and he was instantly reminded of how that laugh basically drove him to where he was today.

“How long has it been?” Harrison asked, trying to play it cool like he hadn’t been rehearsing this day in his mind for the past several months.

“Far too long.” You smiled.

As the last few people trickled into the room, introductions flew around the table as everyone met their new coworkers. After a cold read-through of the script and a few words from the show’s creator, the table read was deemed over. Just when Harrison thought he was free to forget about your existence for a few more days, you pulled him aside.

“Hey, Darci and I were going to get drinks with McKell and Jojo. You should come.” You offered, and Harrison chanced a glance across the room to where Darci was chatting with your other two main co-stars.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Harrison replied. He cleared his throat before giving you a definite nod that yes, that’d be a great idea.

“Perfect.”

And just like that, the five of you made your way across town to a pub. Darci had chosen the spot, explaining that it was the best place for drinks in Liverpool, and, seeing as she’d lived there her whole life, none of you tried to argue with her.

Harrison felt a strange pit in his stomach as everyone talked and laughed over some beers, as if you weren’t all strangers a few hours ago. His eyes always seemed to land on you and your contagious smile. You looked almost exactly how he remembered you, and you still were the same happy, go-lucky girl he’d fallen hard for. It was crazy to him how quickly you gave him butterflies, how effortlessly you made him feel like a silly schoolboy all over again. He couldn’t help but wonder if you thought he’d changed since his school days, too… or if you even thought about him enough to notice. So far, you’d made no indication that he was anyone besides an old friend from drama school, making him hope you didn’t remember that dreadful day.

As you and Darci excused yourself for a bathroom break, Harrison gave himself a little reminder that he was meant to be getting to know all of his co-stars right now and wasn’t meant to be focusing so intently on you. He took another sip of his beer, turning back to Jojo and McKell.

“So how do you and Y/N know each other?” McKell asked, and Jojo tried to hide his shit-eating grin behind his beer.

“Drama school, a few years ago.” Harrison replied, trying to play ignorant.

“Ah, so it’s a schoolboy crush, then?” Jojo questioned teasingly.

Harrison felt his face heat up. Jojo and McKell were practically strangers to him, and they already knew. He was cornered, “Is it that obvious?”

“A little.” McKell said while Jojo simultaneously replied, “Very.”

“Just ask her out.” Jojo encouraged.

“That’s the problem— I did.” Harrison replied, and both of their jaws dropped.

“No way. Did she let you down easy at least?” McKell’s voice was somewhere between a disbelieving, teasing, and pitiful tone.

Harrison scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, “Well, yeah? I mean she wasn’t rude about it, but it was still a bit awkward. She was dating this other guy at the time. He didn’t go to our school, though, so I had no clue about him.”

“That’s rough.” Jojo grimaced, before he gave Harrison a hopeful smile, “Maybe she’s single now.”

“I’ve been rejected by Y/N once— I don’t need her to reject me a second time.” He shook his head with a small laugh to conceal his embarrassment. He took a drink of his beer, hoping that would calm his nerves a little.

“Incoming,” McKell said quietly, nodding in the direction of the bathroom.

“What’d we miss?” Darci asked as she slipped back into her seat. You remained standing to put your jacket on, both you and Darci completely unaware of the boys’ conversation.

“Nothing, just Jojo being an idiot.” McKell joked, to which his newfound friend just punched him in the arm, taking another long drink of his beer.

“I think I might head back to the hotel.” Your words were met with a collective groan from three of your co-stars— Harrison silently frowned as he sipped on his beer.

As your head was down to collect your things, Jojo swiftly kicked Harrison under the table. Harrison looked at him quizzically, sending him a “what the hell was that for” look. When his co-star just nodded his head encouragingly towards you, Harrison got the idea.

“I’ll walk you.” Harrison said, making you look over at him. Standing up from his seat, he insisted, “I was just about to head out, too.”

“Okay,” You smiled, still completely unaware of his interaction with Jojo.

After you all exchanged phone numbers and created a group chat lovingly titled “The Irregz”, you and Harrison left the pub. You fell in step together, walking along the sidewalk in the chilly Liverpool air back to the hotel that you’d all be staying at for the next few months.

“So what have you been up to since graduation?” Harrison asked you, his hands deep in the pockets of his letterman’s jacket.

“All sorts of things, really.” You shrugged with a smile, “I got a few TV roles here and there, did some modeling, but so far none of it has really stuck, so I’m hopeful that this will be a foot in the door. What about you?”

“The same as you, really, but, instead of shows, I’ve done some short films.”

“I see you’re still best friends with Tom.” You said in a teasing tone. Harrison felt an unusual, upsetting tug on his heartstring. Not noticing any change in his demeanor, you continued with a laugh, “It’s funny. I would’ve placed my bets on you being world-famous after graduation.”

“Me?” He questioned, surprised by your words.

“Yeah, you didn’t go to LAMDA for nothing.” You playfully nudged his arm with your elbow, and he felt his cheeks heat up once more. “Don’t be modest— I’m not wrong.”

“Can’t argue with that logic.” A laugh passed his lips, any previous bashful reservations slowly fading away.

Before Harrison could say anything further, your phone began to ring. You fished it out of your pocket and barely looked at the caller ID before sending it to voicemail. Your actions were fast, but Harrison still caught the name of who was calling, Davey, followed by a red heart emoji. And that’s when it hit him— you were still with the same boyfriend from drama school, all those years ago.

And just like that, Harrison felt a tsunami wave of heartbreak from drama school wash over him.

“Hey, Y/N!” Harrison called out as he stumbled his way over to stall you from leaving school. He had one hand holding onto his book bag strap tight enough that his knuckles were turning white, and he shuffled his other through his hair.

“Hey, is everything alright?” You asked, concerned at how nervous he seemed.

“Yeah, um, well, tonight’s opening night for West Side Story, and I was wondering if you wanted to go with me? I know it’s your favorite play, and it’s one of mine too, so, yeah, I thought maybe we could go together?” He was sure that he’d never sounded so unsure of himself. Truth is, he didn’t want to ask you out right now, but Tom and Tuwaine had quite literally shoved him in your direction, physically encouraging him. He felt rushed and unprepared.

When you smiled so captivatingly and softly at him, he felt his racing heart speed up even more. Was this it? Was he really going to take you on a date? He thought to himself. His hopes weren’t up for long as you spoke up, “I can’t. I’ve already got tickets for tonight. I’m going with Davey.”

“Davey?”

“My boyfriend.” You replied, a hint of guilt in your voice.

His heart shattered. The only reason he was here, at this school, was because of you, and now he just had all of his hopes for any future dates with you thrown out the window.

“You and Davey are still together?” Harrison wondered aloud as you two arrived at the hotel.

“Yeah,” Your response was hesitant and quiet. He knew why— there was that elephant in the room between the two of you.

Before he could stop himself from mentioning it, he blurted out, “You don’t have to feel guilty about it, you know.”

You paused, watching unsure as he ran a hand through his hair nervously. “I kinda wonder what would’ve happened if I had said yes. Davey and I didn’t even end up seeing West Side Story, anyway, so I wonder if you and I would’ve ended up any differently.”

It wasn’t much, but his heart sped up ever so slightly— so you had thought about him, even in the dating context. Harrison couldn’t think of a response (his brain repeated “fuck Davey, ask her out again”) fast enough as you stopped at the front desk. You mumbled something about needing some towels, and Harrison took that as his cue to just continue walking. He bid you a quick farewell, wanting to escape to his room as fast as possible.

Nothing you had said tonight had been particularly flirty, but he still rewound the events in his head because maybe he missed something. As he laid down in his bed that night, his mind drifted off with thoughts of you, wondering just how he’d manage to pull off these next few months without falling for you all over again.

Over the next several weeks, his predicament only seemed to grow. Spending so much time with you (and your other three co-stars) just made Harrison wish even more that he’d asked you out sooner in drama school, and having to spend most of his screen time gawking over you added to it further. Maybe it was another school boy crush, or maybe it was intense method acting— either way, he definitely liked you.

Ever since he read the script for episode four, he knew that eventually your two characters would become romantically involved. He would’ve felt giddy over the thought (because his eighteen-year-old self would’ve died at this opportunity), but whenever he thought of the scene, he was reminded about your boyfriend. Harrison wasn’t the type of guy to hate his crush’s boyfriend, but something just didn’t seem right about Davey.

Harrison was lying on his hotel bed, reading over the episode’s script for what must have been the fifth time through that afternoon. It was Sunday, the day before you’d both film Leo and Bea’s kiss. With a beer on his side table and an array of highlighters beside it, he was set. As the words started to run together, and his glasses began to feel uncomfortable on his nose, he heard a knock at his door.

“Coming!” Harrison called out. Setting his script aside, he rolled off the bed. He was confused at who could possibly be at his door, but, figuring it was someone from set, he had the decency to slip on a white t-shirt, opting for not answering the door in nothing but grey sweats. He was thankful for his last-minute decision as he opened the door and was met with you on his doorstep. Smiling at you and leaning on the doorframe, he let out a small, “Hey.”

“Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to rehearse tomorrow’s scene.” You offered with a friendly smile on your face.

“Right now?” He asked, glancing back into his room to decipher if it was clean enough or not.

“Oh, is this a bad time?” You replied, subconsciously stepping back. “Is someone here?”

“What?” Harrison looked at you, confused before it clicked what you thought, “Oh, no, no. There’s no one here. I was just rehearsing, too.”

“So is that a yes then or-?” You trailed off.

“Yeah, come on in.” He opened his door fully, allowing you to step in. He chivalrously closed the door behind you. “Would you like water or anything?”

“Can I have a beer?” You asked, spotting the one on his nightstand.

“Sure.” Harrison nodded. While he got you a beer and grabbed his own half-consumed bottle and script, you settled on the couch with your pages in hand.

“Thank you.” You smiled as he handed you the beer, and you took a sip happily. “You know, I’m honestly so jealous of you this week.”

“Why?” He asked with a laugh, thrown off guard by your confession.

“You get to do all the palace scenes again.”

“I also throw myself off a balcony.”

“But still.” You insisted. “Leo really needs to sneak Bea into the palace just so I can have one of those extravagant ball dress scenes. I just want to feel like a princess, and I feel like it’s what Bea deserves.”

Harrison looked at you admiringly for a moment. “You are a princess.” His face dropped as soon as he realized he’d said his thoughts aloud. Coughing, he tried to cover it up, “I mean—- you were kind of princess-like in episode 3, right?”

“Smooth.” You laughed, but didn’t press the situation. Your phone began to ring, and Harrison watched as you rolled your eyes, declining the call and ultimately silencing your phone.

“Spam call?”

“More like clingy non-committal somewhat boyfriend.” You stated, rolling your eyes.

He furrowed his eyebrows, confused. You hadn’t mentioned Davey in the past few weeks— not that Harrison was complaining, but he just assumed you were private about your personal life. “I thought you and Davey were on good terms?”

“We are? I don’t know.” You sighed, taking a sip of your beer.

“If you’re not comfortable with the topic, we can just rehearse-”

“No, it’s fine. I just haven’t really talked about it with anyone. Before I came here, he asked about having an open relationship while I’m away, and I told him no. And the last time we talked, we got into an argument and that was a couple days ago. I’m not ready to talk to him, and at this point, I’d much rather talk to you than him. It’s very frustrating that he wants to have an open relationship, but he still expects me to be at his beck and call. It’s like he’s looking for someone to substitute me, but I can’t have a life of my own. He wasn’t the most supportive of me taking this job in the first place, too.” You paused, with a small shrug, “I know you’re probably thinking I should leave him, but I can’t. We’ve been together for 5 years. I don’t know anything else at this point.”

“I get it.” Harrison said softly, hesitantly resting a comforting hand on your knee. “He was your first love. It makes sense that it’s hard to move on.” He felt his own heart sink at his ironic words. After all, you were his first love.

“I wouldn’t say he’s my first love.” You said softly, placing your hand on his, squeezing it gently. “Plus, at this point, I wouldn’t even say I love him.”

A silence fell in the room. Harrison really didn’t know what to say now. He would have told you to leave him, but you already knew that, so what was the point in him repeating it? Besides, it was your relationship, and you needed to make the decision for yourself… or let Davey make it for you.

“Let’s go through the scene, yeah?” You asked, changing the topic. You dropped his hand to pick up your script again.

“Right.” Harrison mumbled to himself, flicking through the pages to the scene.

You glanced around his hotel suite for a moment, looking for something similar to a bridge rail to lean on. “Should we use the kitchen counter? As the bridge rail?”

“Yeah, that works.” He nodded. The two of you got up, scripts in hand. Harrison stood to your right, just as the stage direction had called for. There was some space between the two of you, enough room for Harrison to shuffle closer to you later, as scripted.

“You’re not on your own, Beatrice. You must remember that.” Harrison said to you, leaning on the counter but looking over to you with his icy blue eyes. “You’re very different to anyone I’ve ever met.”

“What do you mean?” You asked, looking at him curiously.

“You have something about you.” He started, awkwardly.

You cut him off, “Like a smell?”

“No, like a quality.” He chuckled softly before continuing, “I don’t know what it is, but I really like it.”

“Well, when you think of it, let me know.”

“I’ll be sure to.” He smiled at you, his confidence slowly building as the scene continued on. Harrison stepped closer to you until he was right beside you, leaning sideways on the counter. “And I’m not saying you don’t smell, by the way. I’m just saying that that’s not the thing.”

You laughed, turning your head away from him in disbelief. “You know, I was thinking of kissing you, but now I’m not gonna.”

Harrison paused, taking a moment to mentally hype himself up for what was about to happen, but also taking a moment because it was scripted for Leo to be nervous. “Well, uh, I suppose I have to kiss you then.”

You turned to him, smiling coyly. Slowly, Harrison closed his eyes and leaned in. His heart started racing faster as he felt your breath fan against his face before his lips finally found yours. It was gentle and hesitant, everything that it had been scripted to be. As much as he wanted to keep kissing you and keep tasting the sweet strawberries of your lipgloss, it had to end. He pulled away after a moment, and you seemed almost breathless as you opened your eyes to see him again.

“I meant it when I said you’re not on your own.” Harrison looked at you with more hesitancy this time, but he still kissed you with the softest passion. The script said that Leo and Bea kiss and continue to kiss for a few seconds; Harrison wasn’t counting, but he was sure this kiss was longer than it was meant to be. Again, he found himself dreading its inevitable end. If there was one thing he could do for the rest of his life, it’d be this… well, this amongst other things with you. His stomach started to stir with guilt as he remembered Davey; you were still technically in a relationship, open or not, arguing currently or not. But then it clicked with Harrison, you weren’t pulling away— no, you were fully kissing him back.

Before he could pull away and end the scene with his last few lines, a knock came from his door. Regretfully, he stepped away from you. He didn’t meet your eye as he went to answer the door while you read over the script on the counter. Flustered, he opened the door.

“Mum! You’re here.” Harrison’s eyes went wide, surprised to see his mother and his sister standing before him.

“Surprise!” She smiled, hugging him almost immediately. “We had to come and see you at your big job.”

“Are you not happy to see us?” Charlotte teased, and Harrison shook his head, pulling her in for a hug. As they all stepped into Harrison’s apartment, you waved from the kitchen.

“Hi.” You smiled, coming over to introduce yourself.

“Oh, mum, Charlotte, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is my mum and Charlotte, my sister.” Harrison introduced the three of you.

“You’re Y/N Y/L/N from drama school?” Phil said with a smile, making the connection as you shook her hand. Charlotte seemed to stifle a laugh as Harrison’s cheeks heated up.

“Yes, that sounds like me.” You laughed, brushing off any awkwardness that Harrison feared was there. “We were just rehearsing our scene for tomorrow.”

“Maybe we can come to set.” Phil suggested, sending Harrison an expectant look.

“I’ll have to ask. This is so, so last-minute, though, so I don’t know.” He replied.

“It’s a spontaneous weekend trip.” Charlotte clarified.

“We should get some dinner. We haven’t eaten much all day.” Phil told Harrison before turning to you, “Y/N, you should come, too. It’d be so lovely to get to know you.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” You trailed off, glancing at Harrison. He sent you a silent look that said ‘she seriously does want you to come… If you don’t come, I won’t hear the end of it’. “I’d love to. I just need to go change first.”

You grabbed your script off the counter, and Harrison walked you to the door. “How long do you need?”

“Like 10 minutes?” You replied, and he nodded.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know they were coming, or that they’d invite you to dinner.” He said quietly, making you laugh.

“It’s fine, but I do have to warn you, if my parents spontaneously drop by, they don’t know who you are.” You teased.

He let out an embarrassed groan, “Let’s not talk about that.”

“See you in ten.” You sent him a wink before leaving to your own hotel room. As Harrison closed the door and turned back around, he was met with the smirking faces of his mother and sister.

“So, is there anything you want to tell us?” Phil asked.

“We were rehearsing. That’s all.” Harrison insisted, going through the wardrobe to find some clothes to change into for dinner.

“Huh,” Charlotte trailed off, crossing her arms. “So, you wearing sparkly lip gloss that matches Y/N’s is a coincidence?”

“It’s a kiss scene tomorrow. We rehearsed the lines and the kisses, too.” He explained. With a pair of jeans, a clean shirt, and his red letterman jacket in hand, he made his way to the bathroom.

“Oh, multiple kisses.” She teased, making him roll his eyes.

“She has a boyfriend!” Harrison ended the conversation, closing the door to the bathroom.

Ten minutes later, you returned back to Harrison’s room, and the four of you left, making your way to an Italian restaurant nearby. You and Harrison shared anecdotes about filming so far, keeping spoilers to a minimum until the server came with your food.

“We got in so much trouble from the makeup and hair department.” You laughed as Harrison finished telling them of how you two went on the playground last week, much to the chagrin of the crew.

“It was worth it.” He added.

“Who would’ve known you’d play a Netflix prince?” Charlotte asked teasingly, but it was clear she was still proud of his achievements.

“Look at that face. He couldn’t play anything but a prince.” You joked, and he smiled smugly.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He stated.

“Phil, I have to say, I’ve never met someone more well suited to play a well-mannered prince.” You told her, playfully pinching Harrison’s cheek beside you.

“I remember when there was a time he was revolted at the idea of playing a prince.” Phil said, her lips growing into a smirk, and Harrison knew exactly what that meant.

“Mum, no—“ He started, but you just shushed him, wanting to hear whatever embarrassing story was about to be told.

“He watched a single Batman movie growing up— and not even a good one at that, and decided he simply had to be Batman.” She explained. “Then the Christopher Nolan ones came out, and there was no stopping him.”

“Every kid wants to be a superhero, and Batman is simply the best one.” He said as if it was obvious.

“I didn’t know you had a Batman phase.” You teased.

“Phase? He still has posters and comic books and dolls.” Charlotte added.

“Action figures.” He corrected her, making you laugh at the humor of it all.

“You know, honestly, I think I still have Catwoman action figures.” You admitted, trying to make him feel better, and Phil’s eyes lit up as she remembered another story.

“I cleaned your room a couple weeks ago, Harrison, and I was surprised to see you still Anne Hathaway as Catwoman posters.”

“Do we really have to talk about that? Does this torture not end?” He groaned.

“Fine. That’s enough for tonight.” Phil let out a defeated sigh, clearly enjoying herself.

“Y/N, if you want the really embarrassing stories, you’ve got to talk to Tom. He’s told me embarrassing Harrison stories that I can’t say in front of mum.” Charlotte laughed, and Harrison’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head at his sister’s words.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” You smiled coyly.

“Sometimes, I wonder if he forgets that I know just as much embarrassing shit that he did growing up, too.” Harrison stated, shaking his head.

The night went on with minimal embarrassment on Harrison’s end. After Phil and Charlotte went back to their hotel, you and Harrison started the walk back to your own hotel. As you walked, your hands would brush against each other’s every so often, but neither of you made any move to take it further.

“Darci’s going to be so jealous in the morning.” You said, making him laugh a little.

“Why’s that?”

“That’s her favorite restaurant in town. Plus, I just got a free meal.” You laughed. A visible shiver coursed through you as the chilly night air picked up.

“Are you cold?” Harrison asked, already taking off his letterman’s jacket.

“Thank you.” You replied, taking his offer of warmth. Your short sleeves did nothing to shield you from the cold, but he had at least been prepared enough with long sleeves. “Are you sure you won’t get chilly?”

“I’ll be fine.” He reassured you.

“I had a really nice time tonight. I’m glad your mum invited me.” You admitted happily.

“Me, too. Apart from all of the embarrassment I just went through, I enjoyed tonight.”

“I never knew you had a secret Batman fanboy side.”

“I never knew you had a secret Catwoman fangirl side.” He countered with a smile.

“Guess that means we make a good team, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

As you smiled at him, completely content under the moonlight, he wanted nothing more than to kiss you right then, to taste the sweetness of your strawberry lip gloss again. The last bit of your walk was filled with you two arguing over Batwoman and Catwoman, two things that neither of you had ever realized you had in common before.

Harrison’s wish finally came true the next day, as you two ran through the kiss scene multiple times. It was strange at first for him, because his sister and mother were intently watching, proud to see him in action, even if it was just a kiss scene over and over again. But, with you there, he grew more and more comfortable with each take.

As a few more weeks passed by, Harrison thought that perhaps you and Davey had officially ended things, but then he heard through Darci that you had magically worked it out. Whatever magic it was, he was upset about it, and he found himself increasingly irritated at the mention of Davey.

“Ooh, we finally get to meet the Davey tonight?” Darci asked as the five of you enjoyed lunch in between shots. It had been two weeks Harrison’s mother and sister visited, and now Davey was coming, much to Harrison chagrin.

“He’s only here for two days.” You explained, taking a bite of your sandwich.

“Ah, so you’ll be very busy, then.” McKell teased, suggestively nudging your side with his elbow. You brushed off his comment with a laugh, avoiding Harrison’s eyes.

“We should get him to do that calzone challenge with us.” Jojo said to Harrison. Although Jojo and McKell had been rather supportive of Harrison’s interest in you at the beginning, they seemed to forget about it most of the time now— for which he was actually kind of grateful.

The conversation couldn’t go any further as the director came into the room, holding the script in his hands. The look on his face told all of you that something was up. He looked between you and Harrison before speaking, “Change of plans for tomorrow. Eileen isn’t feeling well, so we’ll film Bea and Leo’s scene tomorrow instead of her scenes.”

“But tomorrow was supposed to be—“ You started, but cut yourself short, realizing there was no point in arguing. Schedules, plans, things all change, and this was just part of the job. “Never mind.”

“Well, tomorrow will be interesting.” Darci said quietly, voicing what was on everybody’s minds.

The director left with a silent nod, and the room fell silent for a moment. You and Harrison wouldn’t dare to look at each other, both of you feeling awkward suddenly. Making out with Harrison multiple times, especially with your boyfriend there, was not something either of you particularly enjoyed the thought of.

Having to film no more scenes today, Harrison went back to the hotel with Jojo and McKell. He didn’t end up seeing you for the rest of the day, but he was okay with that as he wanted to go as long as he could without meeting Davey. The director had taken some pity on the two of you, asking you to come in later in the morning instead of at 6 AM like usual.

Harrison made his way down to the hotel gym, wanting to utilize his newfound free time. Normally, he’d get his daily workout in after filming, but he didn’t see a reason to not get an early start today. He didn’t expect anyone to be up this early, but as he got closer to the gym, he could hear a voice coming from inside the room, the door cracked just slightly.

“Love, I promise I’ll be back in two days.” The stranger paused before continuing, “You know I’m only here for business, nothing else.”

Curious and trying to decide if he should even enter the room, Harrison snuck a quick glance through the crack in the doorway. He felt his blood run cold as he immediately recognized the guy sitting on the weight bench. Afterall, Harrison had looked at your social media enough to recognize your olive-skinned boyfriend, Davey.

“Bit early for you, isn’t it?” Harrison nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of your voice from down the hall. He heard Davey mumbled something on the other side of the door, probably having heard your voice too.

“Yeah, but I just figured I’d start my pull-ups early today.” He replied before opening the door for you, acting like he had no clue that Davey had been in there.

“Hello, gorgeous.” Davey said to you, completely ignoring Harrison. He stood from his spot at the weight bench to wrap his arms around your waist and kiss you possessively.

“Davey, this is Harrison, he plays Leo. Harrison, this is Davey.” You introduced the two guys.

Davey looked Harrison up and down with his dark brown eyes and seemed to stand straighter, even though the blond was inches taller. Harrison was the first to step forward and politely outstretch a hand to the raven-haired guy before him. With a tight smile, Davey shook his hand, “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

Davey turned back to you, “Spot me?”

“Actually, I wanted to-” Your eyes drifted over to the treadmill as Harrison got in position to start his pull-ups at the bar. Davey looked at you expectantly, and you nodded, silently agreeing to stand there and spot Davey while he bench pressed.

Slipping on his headphones and turning on some music, Harrison began his workout. He played his music loud enough to block out your conversations with Davey. Not only was it none of his business, but god, Harrison really hated everything about him already. Hearing silence between you and Davey when his song changed, Harrison spared a glance over towards you. He was surprised when he found your eyes trained on him or, rather, trained on his abdomen that seemed to stick out from his tight white shirt. Still unaware of his eyes on you, your own eyes trailed up to his arms, watching as they flexed with each pull-up. Feeling flustered by your fixed gaze, Harrison faltered a little, and your eyes immediately darted back to Davey in front of you. Harrison couldn’t help the proud smile that ghosted his lips as he continued— you were checking him out.

Harrison finished his workout and decided to get cleaned up before heading to set in half an hour, leaving you and Davey in the gym. When he left, he was surprised that you were still spotting Davey, getting no work out in like you had planned. The whole time he was getting cleaned up (and brushing his teeth repeatedly to ensure he had good breath), he just kept picturing your staring in his head. He had worked very hard to get his body in this shape, and he was very proud of himself too, but he was even prouder that you’d clearly taken notice. If anything, it almost excited him that they’d be filming this scene today. There were a few times in this episode specifically in which Leo is shirtless, but none of those scenes had been filmed— and if this scene was going to be anything like it was scripted to be, then you’d definitely get a better show than in the hotel gym.

He didn’t see you again until the two of you were on set, in full costume and makeup. He had a loose shirt on, but underneath it, his chest had been painted with blues and purples to make convincing bruises. As he went to his mark, Leo’s makeshift bed on the floor of the cellar, Harrison spotted Davey across the set, looking bored and unhappy. His blue eyes drifted over to you next, and he refrained himself from smirking as he noticed your makeup artist applying chapstick to your lips.

While you gathered your prop lantern and the lights dimmed around you all, Harrison made himself comfortable under the ragged blankets. The director called out “Action!” and Harrison closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep as he waited for you to come into the shot. Hearing your footsteps, Harrison stirred, blinking his eyes open.

“Bea, is everything alright?” He asked, looking up at you as you stood over him.

“Let me see your body.” You said definitively.

“Beatrice—” He started, but you cut him off.

“Show me, Leo. I want to see it.” At your words, Harrison shifted slowly, moving as if in pain. He pulled the blankets down and went to roll up his shirt. “Take your top off.”

He paused, looking at you questioningly with a hint of fear in his eyes. Groaning a little, Harrison sat up and removed his shirt. He looked at you expectantly, and you set aside the lantern before kneeling on the blankets beside him. Your hand drifted over the painted bruise tentatively, ghosting over the same abs that you had been studying just hours earlier. Harrison waited for you to deliver your next line, knowing he was scripted to kiss you after it. It felt like ages that he was waiting for you, wanting nothing more than to kiss you right now. His mind went blank as your eyes found his and you leaned in to kiss him.

It was unscripted, and he was surprised, but he didn’t let his surprise stop him from immediately kissing you back. Your chapstick tasted of strawberries, just as it had the last time the two of you had a kissing scene, and he swore he was in love with the taste of it. He expected to hear the director yell cut, to hear him question why you suddenly improvised, but when nothing came, he just continued to kiss you. You pulled back, a shy smile on your face, “I don’t want you to hide your body from me anymore. It’s too nice to be hidden.”

His heart leapt as he leaned forward to catch your lips once more, this time scripted. His hands shuffled to your waist, pulling you down to lay beside him as he rolled onto his side, his chest leaning over yours. Your fingers tangled into his hair, and he savored the feeling.

You pulled back again, whispering up to him, “No more hiding.”

“No more hiding.” He reaffirmed. As he continued to kiss you, his hands sensually wandered down your back, keeping you as close to him as possible. Part of him wanted to pause the intimate scene and pinch himself, just to make sure it was really happening, but he was worried if he stopped kissing you now that he’d never get the opportunity to kiss you like this again.

“Cut!” The director called, and Harrison reluctantly pulled away from you. He could’ve sworn a small frown passed your lips as he looked down at you, not having shifted off of you yet.

“Spearmint— my favorite.” You teased quietly, as if it was only for the two of you to hear. As you laughed underneath him, Harrison couldn’t help but wonder what his younger self would think if he knew he’d one day get to make out with Y/N Y/L/N. Even if it was just for the show, it was a sight that he’d always want to remember.

“I’ve always enjoyed the taste of strawberries.” He replied softly, rolling away from you.

The director ran you two through a couple pointers for the scene, and, to Harrison’s surprise, he even suggested Bea kissing Leo first, just like you had improvised. You reasoned that you forgot your line momentarily, but something about the way you kissed Harrison made him feel like that wasn’t the case; no, it seemed like you’d truly wanted to kiss him.

After running through the scene a few more times, the director was satisfied. While you stayed behind on set to film more scenes, Harrison returned to his hotel room. Just as he was searching his toiletry bag for some much-needed chapstick, his phone began to ring with a Facetime call. Seeing Harry’s contact photo light up on his screen, he accepted and set his phone aside momentarily. He didn’t need to wonder what Harry (and most likely Tom, Tuwaine and maybe even Sam) were calling about— he had made the dire mistake of telling his easily-excited best friends about today’s scene.

“Why are we looking at your ceiling?” Harry asked almost immediately.

“I’m, uh, looking for lip balm.” Harrison admitted quietly and smiled to himself when he found some. He quickly put it on and then grabbed his phone, heading to his bed where he could comfortably talk to his friends.

As expected, his friends let out an incoherent chorus of excitement. Sam seemed to calm down enough first to ask (more like, shout through the phone), “How was it?”

“Does she really kiss with tongue? Remember Jack used to say-” Tom started, and Harrison scoffed, hearing the name of one of their old classmates who swears he had a summer fling with you once.

“I still don’t believe him, but no, not today at least.” Harrison was honestly a bit embarrassed to admit it. You were in a relationship… with a possibly cheating moron, but still. It just didn’t feel right to talk about you in that way.

“Not today? So there could be another time!” Tuwaine shouted encouragingly.

“Is she still with that prick?” Tom asked.

“Yes, but,” Harrison paused, and they all looked at him expectantly, waiting for elaboration, “I think he might be cheating on her.”

“What makes you say that?” Harry questioned. “Mate, just because you fancy her doesn’t mean her boyfriend’s a cheater.”

“No, I mean I heard him on the phone, and he said he was in Liverpool for business, not for his girlfriend.” He reasoned, “I’m just very suspicious of him.”

“You should tell her if you think he is.” Sam stated, “If he isn’t, then, oh no, you’re on bad terms with her boyfriend, who probably already hates you after today. If he is, well, she’d hate you if she finds out you kept it from her.”

Harrison let out a small sigh as the others nodded. “I don’t know. It’s not my place. Besides, she said something a few weeks about him wanting an open relationship. Maybe it’s that?”

“Okay, look, forget I asked about him.” Tom said, shaking his head, while the others looked at Harrison skeptically through the phone, “How was it to finally have your drama school dreams fulfilled?”

“Fucking heaven.” Harrison admitted with a laugh.

For the next week, Harrison resisted the urge to tell you about Davey. He wanted to, he really did, but whenever he’d finally be alone with you and mentally prepare himself for the conversation, you would always just seem so happy and content. He couldn’t bring himself to disturb your happiness, especially when it was Harrison making you happy. After Davey left, it’s like something changed within you, and Harrison had no clue what it was, but he enjoyed it.

‘You have to tell her.’ Harrison read over his most recent text from Tom again. He let out a small sigh, trying to get the courage to tell you as you sat across from him at the booth.

It was Saturday, and you two, along with Darci, Jojo, and McKell, had made your way to a club, wanting to celebrate another week down. With only two episodes left to film, you all knew your time together was starting to run low. You were all a few drinks in by now, happily buzzed. Jojo and McKell were off somewhere, probably attempting to be each other’s wingmen. Darci was telling you a story so wild that Harrison wondered if it was even true. He finished the rest of his drink and shuffled out of the booth.

“I’m going to grab another drink.” Harrison said to you two, and, without waiting for a response, he left. He made no move to flag down the bartender, leaning against an empty spot in the bar. Pulling on the collar of his blue shirt, he started to feel hot, unsure if he could handle this.

“What happened to getting another drink?” You asked him, stepping up beside him.

“Where’s Darci?” He replied, not wanting to answer your question.

“Found a friend in the crowd.” You laughed and turned to flag down the bartender. You ordered a round of shots, to Harrison’s surprise.

“Are you good?” He asked skeptically.

“Yeah,” You nodded, but with how your eyes were glazed over the alcohol and another unreadable emotion, Harrison didn’t quite believe you. Playfully, you nudged him, “I should ask you the same thing. You’re the one who’s been moping all night for god knows why.”

“I haven’t been moping.” He argued as a tray of four shots was placed in front of you two. You handed one to him and took one for yourself.

“Cheers to another week done.” You clinked your shot glass against his before both of you downed them.

As you went to grab your second shot, Harrison reached a hand and stopped you. Concerned, he asked, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Davey and I broke up— for good this time.” You admitted, and his hold on your wrist softened while he looked at you pitifully. “He told me when he was here that he went through with his ‘open relationship’ plan, even though I never agreed to it, so he’s been basically cheating on me since I left for this job. Then tonight, he drunkenly texts me, and I know it’s just a booty call. He’s done it for years, but now I actually see it for what it is. So now, my shitty boyfriend is gone, I’m finally single, and my only plans for tonight is to get properly drunk. Maybe even hookup with a stranger— god knows it’s been a while since I had decent sex.” Harrison was speechless, and you continued, a smile finding its way to your face at the end of your venting. “Dance with me after this shot?”

“Do I have a choice?” He asked playfully, feeling your mood lighten once more. You winked at him, handing him a full shot glass. He made a mental note to keep a close eye on you and to keep you from drinking anymore.

After you both drank back the burning liquid, you grabbed his hand and pulled him out to the dancefloor. Harrison had felt the alcohol that was flooding his system earlier, but the colored lights, pounding music, and countless bodies around him seemed to make the alcohol hit him harder. There was a weight off his shoulders, knowing you were actually single as you danced with him, and yet he still felt strange about his current state with you— were you truly into him or was he just the first guy you could drunkenly hook up with?

You turned to face him, a small frown on your face, “Haz, you’re being a bit of a killjoy.”

It was then that he realized, while you were fully grinding on his body, he was relatively motionless. Your hands found his, and you planted one on your hip and another on the small of your back, low enough though that it teetered being on your ass. You leaned in closer to him, letting him get a whiff of your perfume. While one of your hands trailed along the hem of his shirt, daring to even dip below his shirt, the other traced through his hair.

As you planted a kiss on Harrison’s neck, not caring at all for the dancing bodies around you, you heard him let out a strangled groan of your name. Your nails light scratched over the deep V in his hips, hooking onto where his jeans met the line.

“Should we get out of here?” You asked Harrison, your lips right next to his ear as your voice dripped with seduction. He felt his heart flip with intoxicating excitement before he was immediately reminded of the gravity of the situation. You went to kiss him, but he moved back quickly, stepping out of your reach. Pouting, you asked, “Do you not want me? After all this time?”

“No, I do.” Harrison insisted. “I want you, but not like this, not when you’re drunk. You’re not in the right headspace for this. I don’t want to be your drunken rebound.”

“How can you be a rebound when it’s always been you?”

Harrison sighed. Oh, how much he’d love to hear that from you— sober. He was saved from having to reply when Darci, McKell, and Jojo found you two. They looked at the two of you skeptically, but Harrison just shook his head.

“I’m going to take Y/N back to the hotel.” He said as he stepped closer to the group so that they could hear him over the music.

“We’ll come, too.” Jojo insisted, even though, with his words slurred and his eyes glazed over, he was thoroughly drunk, too.

“Where did Y/N go?” McKell asked, realizing your sudden absence.

“Oh god,” Harrison muttered, and the four of them dispersed in the crowd to find you, tripping over the other sweaty bodies. Darci found you first, unable to stop you from having a couple more shots.

“No, no, you’re done.” She argued with you. You reached for the last shot that she had taken from you, but, in your intoxicated state, you easily lost your balance. Harrison quickly wrapped an arm around your waist to hold you up.

“I don’t think she can walk.” Jojo commented.

“What gave that away?” McKell asked sarcastically.

“Come on, let’s get you home.” With a small sigh, Harrison, as the most sober of the group (though he still felt fairly tipsy), proceeded to lead you out of the club.

Darci hailed a cab for the five of you, and while it was an illegally tight fit, you all made it work. You leaned on Harrison as he was pressed right up against you. On your other side sat Jojo. You mumbled softly to Harrison, one of your hands falling onto his knee, “Do you remember that year when they put up mistletoe at school?”

“Where are you going with this?” He asked you softly.

“I saw you kiss Vivian at the one outside of the gym, and I couldn’t walk in that area for three months without thinking of you. I was so jealous of her, and you just looked like such a good kisser, which I’m happy to report you are.”

“Babes, maybe stop with the drunk talking.” Darci said, because all of you could tell this was stuff sober you would never say.

Harrison looked at you in surprise— he barely even remembered when Vivian dragged him under the mistletoe, so the fact that you remembered and were jealous? And you said he was a good kisser, too. He felt a glimmer of pride overcome him.

“Ask me tomorrow, it’s the truth.” You shuffled in your seat, laying your head against Jojo’s shoulder, “Jojo, wanna know a secret?”

“Y/N, maybe-” Darci started, but Jojo cut her off.

“No, go on, Y/N.” He laughed, wanting to hear your drunk thoughts.

“Do you think I’d make a good Catwoman?” You asked, words slurring together as you grew tired.

“Catwoman? Like Anne Hathaway?” He questioned, and you hummed a ‘yes’. “Yeah, you’d make a good Catwoman.”

“Good. Tell Haz he needs to my Batman then.” Your voice was quiet, as if it was something just meant for the two of you to hear, but your voice wasn’t nearly as soft as you had thought it was, meaning Harrison and the rest of your friends were truly aware of your little drunken secret

“Okay, I’ll tell him.” Jojo reassured you, a shit-eating grin on his face as he glanced over your head to look at the embarrassed Harrison.

The rest of the car ride was silent, and Harrison helped you out of your seat. With the help of the others, he got you safely inside your hotel room. Everyone retreated to their own rooms, except for Harrison who stayed with you. He laid you down on your bed and went searching for your pajamas, which to his luck were stowed underneath your pillow.

“Can you change or—?” Harrison asked, holding out the clothes to you

“I’ve got it, though I wouldn’t mind you helping.” You said with a wink. As you started to change out of your club clothes, Harrison turned away from you and focused on getting out some much-needed pain reliever and a glass of water for you to have in the morning. He heard you shuffle on the bed behind him before you let out a small huff, “Hazzy, can you come here?”

Hazzy— that was a new nickname. To his surprise, you were already tucked up in bed, your previously worn clothes scattered on the floor around you. He set the water and meds on your nightstand before kneeling to your level, “What’s wrong, love?”

“Do you know why Davey wasn’t my first love?” You asked quietly, your eyes beginning to droop with sleep. You reached a hand out to tentatively run your fingers over his cheek before you cupped it, smiling softly at him.

He had a hunch, but he played along anyway, wanting to hear you say it, in case he never heard it again. “Why?”

“Because you were.” Your voice was so quiet that he barely heard you, but he was so glad that he did. He leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to your forehead, and you let your hand fall from his face.

“Get some sleep. We can talk in the morning.”

“Can you stay tonight? Please?”

“Of course, love.” Harrison stood to his full height, and when he looked at you again, you were already asleep. He softly readjusted the blankets on your bed to make sure you were warm enough, before he made his way over to the couch. Grabbing a throw blanket off the back of the couch, he settled into his bed for the night. Just like every other night lately, he drifted off thinking of you, but this time, there was an excited flutter in his heart.

The next day, Harrison woke up to you letting out a groan, loudly asking, “Why the fuck is it so bright in here?”

He slowly sat up from the couch to check on you. A smile crossed his face as you took the pain meds he’d left out and downed the glass of water. Your eyes seemed to bulge out of your head when you noticed his presence in the room. Laughing, he greeted you, “Good morning, sunshine.”

“Please tell me you miraculously don’t remember anything I said last night because I remember, and I don’t want to.” You said, pulling your knees up to your chest.

“Sorry to disappoint then.” He sent you a sympathetic smile.

With a sigh, you patted the spot beside you on your bed. Wordlessly, Harrison got up from the couch and came to sit beside you on the bed. He expected you to say something, but when you were silent, seemingly caught up in your thoughts, he spoke up, “Did you mean it? When you said I was your first love?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation in your reply, and you turned to finally meet his eye, “It was a very intense schoolgirl crush, hence why I hated Vivian after that mistletoe incident, but seeing you again just made me realize that it was more than just a crush. I’ve regretted saying no to you all those years ago ever since you came back into my life.”

“Well, I thought I was over my crush on you, but turns out, there are just some things time can’t change.”

A comfortable silence overfell you two again before you finally spoke up with the words that had been on your mind for weeks, “I think I’m in love with you.”

“I think I’m in love with you, too.” Harrison sealed his words by leaning in to kiss you.

With no script to follow now, he felt fireworks as you kissed him back. One of your hands drifted to the back of his neck, silently urging him to continue kissing you. His hands snaked around your waist before he shifted to lay on his back, rolling you on top of him. You deepened the kiss, your tongue finding its way into his mouth. He moaned at first, fully enjoying himself, before his lips curved into a smile, and he started to laugh against your lips.

“What’s so funny?” You asked, pulling away from his lips. His hands wandered from your hips up to where your own hands were resting on his chest, and he casually intertwined your fingers.

“It’s nothing.” He said in an attempt to play it off, but the smile on his face told you that whatever he was thinking was hilarious to him. “You remember Jack Evans? He told everyone that you were the best french kisser in school, and, well, he’s not wrong.”

You let out a scoff before giggling to yourself, “First of all, how many girls have you french kissed from drama school and should I be jealous? Second of all, Jack was an ass who couldn’t kiss for shit, but I’ll take it as a compliment that he told everyone that.” You leaned down until your lips were just barely touching, “And thirdly, do you want to keep talking about drama school, or do you want me to keep kissing you?”

“You don’t need to be jealous, but I kinda like that you are.” He replied with a cheeky smile. “And you’re right. He was an ass.”

“And for the last one?” You asked, raising your eyebrows at him.

Harrison pretended to think about it for a second before he let go of your hand to cup your cheek, bringing your lips crashing back down to his.

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